Pete Golding is doing the interview circuit now

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When Lane Kiffin left the Ole Miss Rebels hanging high and dry for the LSU Tigers, the obvious assumption was that a mass exodus of players and coaches would follow him straight to Baton Rouge.

For the most part, that wasn't the case with the players. Sure, 21 players left the program, but of that group, just four landed with the Tigers - T.J. Dottery, Devin Harper, Princewill Umanmielen, and Winston Watkins.

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On the coaching side, however, that was very much the case with 21 total members of Kiffin's staff electing to follow him to Baton Rouge. That list included his wide receiver, running back, tight end, and linebacker coaches, as well as his offensive coordinator and play caller, Charlie Weis Jr.

One major name it did not include, however, was his defensive coordinator, and now Ole Miss head coach, Pete Golding.

And according to Golding himself, during a recent interview with Chris Low of On3, his leaving Ole Miss in any capacity was never even an option

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In fact, he never came to Ole Miss for Lane Kiffin in the first place.

“That’s not why I came here," Golding said in the interview. "This had been going on for two years, whether Lane was going to leave, even the Florida talk the year before. I was like, ‘Hey bro, I Iove you, but don’t get it twisted. I didn’t come here for you.’”

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“You get so locked in sometimes to a career, then you’re focused on the next step," Golding said back in 2023 when he was hired. "Then you’re married and you’ve got 3 kids; sometimes you lose the value of what you’re really about,” Golding said. “I enjoyed where I was at; this is strictly based on trying to be a better husband and father.”

Did Ole Miss being a top-tier program and a great opportunity to further his career help make that decision a lot easier?

Absolutely.

But he was also never going to leave the state to follow Lane Kiffin, or anybody else. He wants to stay exactly where he is right now.

In fact, Golding even told Ole Miss AD Keith Carter, per Low, that if the Rebels had elected to hire someone else, he might have just stayed in Oxford anyway.

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“I could have written a book on how it was going to happen,” Golding told Chris Low. “I knew what was going to occur. I know that side of him really well, and we complemented each other, I felt like, when we were both here. So I get there’s a competitive part of the job and you do what you need to do, and that’s the environment we’re in. I get that type of stuff. But my issue with Lane was what he did to the other people around him, the position they were put in and then the perception of what it was. I just told him, ‘I’m not going to sit here and tell you I can respect that because I don’t. I can understand the competitive part, but not the rest of it with the players and other people in this building.’

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“I think there was a part of it that he doesn’t want this place to have success because then Lane Kiffin wouldn’t have anything to do with it, right? I am not saying he wishes anything bad upon us. I just think there’s a competitive part of everybody when they leave a certain place, very few people in my opinion, that truly want what’s best for that place when they leave for another job. They want to be able to pat themselves on the back and say, ‘Hey, I was the reason for that.’ I knew that was always going to be the case with this one and Lane. Just like if you leave a defensive coordinator job, go take another one and get 40 points scored on you, then you suck.”

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It certainly sets up for a spectacular night when Kiffin and LSU travel to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Sept. 19.

“Going to be a madhouse, an absolute madhouse, and this whole place is ready … been ready,” Golding said.

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