After No. 6 Ole Miss upset No. 3 Georgia 39-34 in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl on New Year's Day, Rebels athletic director Keith Carter tracked down coach Pete Golding on the field at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
"What you've done in the last three or four weeks has just been incredible," Carter told Golding. "The multitasking, the short-term stuff and long-term stuff, and recruiting. It's just been awesome."
For Carter and others involved in the Ole Miss program, what Golding and his staff have accomplished since he replaced Lane Kiffin as Rebels coach on Nov. 30 has been nothing short of astounding.
It's not only that Golding has guided the Rebels to their first two CFP victories and has them one win away from playing for their first national championship since 1962.
It's that Golding has accomplished that and more in perhaps the most difficult circumstances any coach in the CFP has ever faced -- let alone as a 41-year-old former defensive coordinator with no previous head coaching experience.
The Rebels face No. 10 Miami in a CFP semifinal at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl on Thursday (7:30 p.m. ET/ESPN) with the winner advancing to the CFP National Championship on Jan. 19 in Miami Gardens, Florida.
"The only reason I'm a little surprised is just the distraction part of it," Carter said. "But the guys [players] -- it's just such a mature group. Pete and the staff have done an awesome job, but the leadership in the locker room has shown on the field. They've never flinched."
In the 39 days since Golding was promoted, he has juggled a staff that includes assistants working at both Ole Miss and LSU; hired replacements for coaches who are leaving; largely kept the team's recruiting class intact; recruited the Rebels' best players to return in 2026; and added what is expected to be one of the top transfer portal classes in the FBS.
"My next-door neighbor was Aaron Hernandez," said Ole Miss quarterbacks coach Joe Judge, a former New England Patriots assistant. "And this is still more chaotic than when the helicopter was flying over the street."
When Carter elevated Golding only a few hours after Kiffin left for LSU, there were concerns, at least outside the program, that the Ole Miss AD had made a hasty, short-sighted decision to keep the coaching staff intact in order to secure the Rebels' seeding in the CFP.
Walker Jones, executive director of the Grove Collective, disagreed, saying Golding was the clear choice because of the stability he would bring when it was needed most.
"The locker room is so fragile, as we all know," Jones said. "This is the ultimate team sport, and there's no bigger team sport than football [with] so many personalities, so many moving parts. You had to hire the guy that can keep the locker room and the coaching staff in sync. It was such a unique situation, first of its kind. There's no blueprint for it."
Kiffin had built Ole Miss into one of the SEC's best programs. He had a 55-19 record in six seasons, guiding the Rebels to at least 10 wins in four of the past five years. He is considered one of the brightest offensive minds in the game.
Golding, a former Delta State defensive back, has spent his entire career working on defense, including the past decade as defensive coordinator at UTSA (2016-17), Alabama (2018-22) and Ole Miss (2023-25). He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Delta State before being named defensive coordinator at Division II Tusculum in 2008 at the age of 23.
In many ways, Golding is the anti-Kiffin, and not only because of his football pedigree.
"He's just keeping it real," Rebels defensive lineman Zxavian Harris said. "He's not two-faced like Kiffin was. He wasn't showing a whole different side and telling us differently.
"After realizing how he was, and when [Golding] came in, they've seen the difference of how a head coach is supposed to be. Golding is just a straight-up man."
Carter, a former Ole Miss basketball player who has been in charge of the athletic department since November 2019, describes Golding as a "football guy" and someone whom "everybody respects."
"As I went through the process, you're trying to hold on to the old coach, but you know there may be an opportunity to bring in a new coach," Carter said. "As I looked around the country, I just finally realized there's a guy in our building who's got all the things these other coaches have and more -- he just hadn't been a head coach yet."
In the past, Golding said he wasn't sure he wanted to be a head coach and was content being in charge of the defense. That changed when he learned the names of external candidates being considered to replace Kiffin. Golding wasn't sure he wanted to work for them.
"It's football," Golding said last month. "You know, we've had the spot the ball mentality for a long time. I'm where my feet are, and I don't care if I'm at Tusculum, Delta State or here. I'm going to prepare the same way."
What has helped Golding in his unexpected transition to head coach, according to people close to him, is his ability to connect with almost anyone. Although Kiffin was sometimes aloof, Golding knows the name of just about every player and staff member in the Ole Miss program.
"Everyone knows Pete," Judge said. "He's going to take time to speak to our offensive guys, especially his players. Pete knows the building, he knows the room, he knows the personalities, and he's got a special talent of connecting with everybody."
Golding's relationships in the locker room have helped the Rebels re-sign many of their top players for 2026, including quarterback Trinidad Chambliss (if the NCAA approves his medical waiver for a sixth season of eligibility) and tailback Kewan Lacy, who was third in the FBS with 1,464 rushing yards and 23 rushing touchdowns.
There was speculation that LSU would have targeted Chambliss and Lacy if they had entered the transfer portal. In fact, Ole Miss officials believed one of the reasons running backs coach Kevin Smith, who is joining Kiffin's staff, came back to coach the Rebels for the CFP was to stay close to Lacy.
During a 24-hour period this week, the Rebels announced they'd re-signed seven players, including defensive end Princewill Umanmielen, defensive backs Ladarian Clardy and Jaylon Braxton, punter Oscar Bird and kicker Lucas Carneiro.
Carneiro, who set a Sugar Bowl record with a 56-yard field goal and kicked the winning 47-yarder in the Rebels' upset of Georgia, was being wooed by LSU, Notre Dame and Texas A&M, sources told ESPN.
"This time right now, it's more about retention than replacement," Golding said last week. "I think elite programs and elite teams can retain their best players, and I think that's really important. You've got a bottom half of the roster that are young players you've worked your ass off to get there that weren't ready to play this year but are going to be elite players next year."
The Rebels have already put together a strong transfer portal class, adding defensive linemen Michai Boireau (Florida) and Jonathan Maldonado (Nevada), linebackers Chris Jones (Southern Miss) and Keaton Thomas (Baylor), defensive backs Jay Crawford (Auburn) and Sharif Denson (Florida), and others since the portal opened Friday.
Although some might have thought the Ole Miss program would fall off a cliff when Kiffin left, Rebels fans are cheering -- and donating to the Grove Collective -- like never before.
"We've got the pieces in place, the resources, and our fans are behind us," Jones said. "We've got the support and alignment all the way from the top down, from the chancellor to the key athletic department, the collective, our coaches. I think this is proof, again, of a concept. You always want to prove a concept in anything you do. This is proof that we're built to last."
Carter and others have been most impressed by Golding purposely making the Rebels' postseason about the players -- and not him (or Kiffin). When reports emerged last week that Ole Miss wasn't sure it would have all the assistants who were leaving for LSU available at the Fiesta Bowl, Golding avoided clarifying the situation because he didn't want the spotlight to be on Kiffin's coaches, sources told ESPN.
"The very first thing Pete did, and what he's continued to do, is make it about the players," Carter said. "They love that. We have all these great stories -- Trinidad and Kewan and [defensive lineman] Will Echoles -- and this team has had an incredible season, and he's putting the focus back on them."
Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. and Smith are the only LSU coaches who will be with Ole Miss in the Fiesta Bowl. Senior offensive analyst Fisher Ray is working with tight ends because assistant Joe Cox didn't come back, and senior analyst Patrick Carter is coaching receivers after George McDonald left.
Judge said Weis went back and forth from Oxford, Mississippi, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, several times over the past few weeks. After Monday's practice in Oxford, Weis returned to LSU to meet former Arizona State quarterback Sam Leavitt for a recruiting visit on campus. Weis scripted plays on the plane, met with other Ole Miss assistants on FaceTime to make corrections from practice, and spent Tuesday night in Scottsdale, Arizona, the site of Thursday night's game, watching film of a practice from earlier in the day.
"It's been a different process for all of us, but we all work together very well, and Charlie's done a terrific job through his entire process," Judge said. "I can't say enough about Charlie in terms of who he is as a person, what he's doing as a coach. This is a challenge many people haven't had."
When there was uncertainty whether Weis would be available in games, Ole Miss brought in former East Tennessee State offensive coordinator Cam Aiken to help. Aiken assisted in organizing practices and game-planning, and sat next to Weis during the first-round playoff game against Tulane, all while interviewing for other jobs. He was recently hired as James Madison's offensive coordinator.
John David Baker and L'Damian Washington, whom Golding hired as offensive coordinator and receivers coach, respectively, for the 2026 season, jumped right in as well.
Rebels analyst Jake Reiling made an AI image with coaches coming and going through portals. Reiling called the image, "The Avengers."
"Internally, we kind of laugh about it a little bit," Judge said.
Linebacker TJ Dottery said the Rebels were exhausted from waiting for Kiffin to decide whether he was staying at Ole Miss or leaving for Florida or LSU, and they've been annoyed by the repeated questions about which assistants were going to coach them in the CFP.
"It is more than [Kiffin], man," Dottery said. "I appreciate what he did for the program, but I can say it's about more than him. The players are the ones who are making the plays at the end of the day, and we didn't lose any of those guys, so that's all that matters."
Although the Rebels have gone through uncharted waters to get to the CFP semifinals, special teams coordinator Jake Schoonover said playing the games has almost been "medicinal" for the players.
And that starts with the coach who is now in charge.
"He's genuine and he's personal," Schoonover said. "He cares about every relationship he enters. There's a genuine connection that you know he cares, and you know what you're saying means something to him, and the kids feel it. They know that whatever happens, he's got my back, we got his back, and it's on."
The Rebels are one step away from playing for a national championship, which seemed unimaginable when Kiffin left six weeks ago.
"The program's always bigger than any one person, and we've always said that," Jones said. "Lane did a lot of great things when he was here, but this is proof to show that we can win a lot of ballgames from here on out."
