Pete Golding looks back on initial impressions of Ole Miss defense

Once again, Ole Miss underwent a massive overhaul through the transfer portal, adding 20+ guys while seeing more than 30 of their own players leave. The changes were particularly felt on defense, the side of the ball where the Rebels return far less starters and have a brand new defensive coordinator in former Alabama DC Pete Golding.

He’s got a lot of new faces to get to know — both guys that have been around and the ones that were just brought in. So, how does he manage trying to run a defense while also trying to get to know the 40+ people he has on his side of the ball? Golding said at his recent press conference that it was just about finding out how to properly use the team’s best players — their “guys” — on that side of the ball.

“I mean, I think the big thing is when you first come into a place, like, I didn’t look at what they can’t do, you know. I try to take the guys that we have — there are guys — and what position can we put those guys that are already on the roster to be able to have success in the SEC West?” said Golding.

“And so I thought there was obviously some talent up front. I thought we had some size, thought we had some guys that had the ability to rush the passer. We needed to add more depth to that, which I think we did with the spring portal.”

The Rebels certainly did add more to their depth up front and with their pass rushing unit through the portal after Golding arrived. Veteran additions like Stephon Wynn (Nebraska), Isaac Ukwu (James Madison) and Joshua Harris (NC State) highlight the transfer haul among the DLs, and sturdy middle linebacker Monty Montgomery gives the Rebels a leader in the LB room after coming over from Louisville.

But the defensive front wasn’t the only area where Ole Miss needed help, per Golding.

“Obviously, the back end was a little depleted from a numbers standpoint,” he added. “Obviously, we had some guys that have skill that missed the spring, which I didn’t get to see kind of firsthand yet. And then had them in the summer and fall camp, and a lot of those guys are stepping up.”

Even with guys coming back healthy and taking a step up over the offseason, Ole Miss desperately needed portal reinforcements in the secondary since they returned just one starter from their defensive backfield off the 2022 squad. So they went out and landed more transfers, led by Zamari Walton (Georgia Tech), DeShawn Gaddie (North Texas) and John Saunders (Miami OH), who are just three of six total additions in the secondary.

The talent is there, especially with On3’s No. 11 overall transfer haul. Now, some guys may get banged up or won’t pan out like the coaching staff hopes, but at this point, Pete Golding knows he’s got to roll with the punches and and win with the players that he has.

“So, you know, you take what you got. You gotta do the best you can what you got. But we had guys on the current roster that are going to be able to help us win and play winning football.”

Pete Golding has a pretty good idea what winning football looks like, since he spent his previous five seasons as defensive coordinator at Alabama, where his units never allowed more than 20.1 points per game, and fell between 18-21 every single season he ran the defense. Ole Miss hasn’t quite had that level of success defensively and have given up closer to 25-30 points a game since Kiffin arrived.

While it’d be an unrealistic expectation to think Golding can immediately produce similar numbers to his time at Alabama, there is optimism he can give Ole Miss a a stronger defensive identity than they’ve had so far under Lane Kiffin.