Lane Kiffin: Ole Miss defense 'has a lot of work to do' during fall camp with Pete Golding
There were plenty of things Lane Kiffin and the trio of Ole Miss players were celebrating and championing during their tour through the Southeastern Conference Media Days on Thursday but one area still had expectations tempered.
Pete Golding coming to Ole Miss after five seasons at Alabama was a big topic the last two days of SEC Media Days in Nashville with Alabama and Nick Saban taking the main stage on the day prior to Kiffin and the Rebels.
The new defensive coordinator in Oxford has fans and the college football pundits interested in the changes that will be made and how fast their effectiveness will be noticed.
While Kiffin is excited about bringing Golding in and the steps made during spring practices he was quick to point out all is not 100 percent fixed ahead of fall camp starting.
“I think we have a lot of work to do there,” Kiffin said on the current state of his defense. “We had some significant players injured in the spring, including Cedric (Johnson). …We had a lot of new staff over there. That’s a huge challenge for us in this camp coming up. Just to get everything installd, get all the moving parts and figure out who we’re going to play.”
Between the NFL Draft, eligibility exhaustion and the transfer portal the defense took the biggest hit in losing players from a season ago.
Kiffin and Golding went to work and landed over a dozen new players for the defense to work in and begin to gel with the Ole Miss players already here.
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“We were pretty tireless at looking everywhere because we had a lot of needs and a lot of number issues that where there, especially on the back end,” Kiffin said. “There’s a lot of new people, including some that weren’t here even in the spring. So, that’s going to be a big challenge bringing all those pieces together.”
Ole Miss players at Media Days were not as down on the defense when asked about Golding’s presence.
Johnson was one of the three players representing Ole Miss in Nashville on Thursday and expected to be one of the top contributors on the defensive line.
Coming back from offseason shoulder surgery Johnson is now full go and set to be 100 percent for the start of fall camp. Johnson did not get to do a lot of the contact drills or participate in any of the scrimmages or Grove Bowl, but he sees how the defense is changing already.
“I like him a lot,” Johnson said of Golding. “He’s funny. If you didn’t know, he’s a pretty funny guy. I really like him, how particular in detail he is in the defense.
“But he doesn’t stray away from at the end of the day we just playing ball, play the game you love, play hard, play fast, play physical. That will take care of the majority of our problems, take care of the majority of things. That’s the main thing.”
