Pete Golding’s road to Saturday night’s showdown with LSU runs straight through Louisiana.
The Ole Miss head coach grew up in Hammond, starred at Hammond High and later served as defensive coordinator at Southeastern Louisiana, so when the No. 8 Rebels host No.
7 LSU in Oxford, this is more than just another top-10 SEC game for him. It’s a chance to go up against the state’s flagship program with a background rooted deep in Louisiana football.
Golding played safety at Delta State from 2002 through 2005 after leaving Louisiana. He became a four-year starter, piled up 285 career tackles and picked up All-Gulf South Conference honors along the way.
His coaching career started at Delta State and included a stop at Tusculum before he came back home in 2012, when Southeastern Louisiana hired him as defensive coordinator and secondary coach. That second season in Hammond turned into one of the best in school history.
The 2013 Lions went 11-3, set a program record for wins, ran the table in Southland Conference play and captured the school’s first conference title since 1961. They also reached the FCS playoffs for the first time and made it all the way to the quarterfinals.
Southeastern led the Southland in scoring defense that year.
After that, Golding kept moving up the ladder. He left Southeastern after the 2013 season, spent time at Southern Miss and UTSA, then joined Nick Saban’s staff at Alabama. He served five seasons as Alabama’s defensive coordinator, including the Crimson Tide’s 2020 national championship run, before Lane Kiffin brought him to Ole Miss as defensive coordinator in 2023.
Golding’s path shifted again when Kiffin left Ole Miss for LSU after the 2025 regular season. Ole Miss promoted Golding to head coach on Nov. 30, 2025, making him the 40th head coach in program history. He inherited a team getting ready for its first College Football Playoff appearance.
The buildup around this game has centered heavily on Kiffin’s return to Oxford, but Golding made it clear this week that his team knows how to handle the moment.
“If they can’t get up for this one, I don’t know why they play the game,” Golding said.
More than a decade after coaching at Strawberry Stadium in Hammond, Golding now gets his shot at LSU in a College GameDay spotlight at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
LSU and Ole Miss kick off at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
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Landry Kiffin picked a familiar college-football backdrop for the launch of her new clothing brand, Fifth Year, rolling out the live sale during the LSU-Ole Miss game. The brand leans into activewear and gameday apparel, built around college colors and traditions, which makes the timing feel especially on-brand for a family that has spent plenty of time around both sidelines.
For LSU fans, the launch adds another layer to a week already shaped by the Kiffin familys connections to both programs. Landrys ties to LSU and Ole Miss give Fifth Year a built-in crossover appeal, and the coincidence of debuting it on game day only sharpened the spotlight around a matchup that was already going to draw attention well beyond the scoreboard. [Read more 🡒]
LSU Suddenly Has A Huge Ole Miss Question At Quarterback
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If Leavitt cannot go, Elon transfer Landen Clark is expected to step in and make the start, which would put a lot more on LSUs shoulders in a tough road environment. The betting line has already moved in Ole Misss favor since the news broke, a pretty clear sign of how much this quarterback situation has changed the outlook for the Tigers. [Read more 🡒]
LSU Ole Miss Rivalry Just Picked Up An Ugly Off Field Twist
The LSU-Ole Miss rivalry already has plenty of edge on the field, but now it has spilled into the courtroom in a way that reaches straight into the Tigers roster. Ole Miss has filed breach-of-contract lawsuits against former Rebels Princewill Umanmielen and Devin Harper after both transferred to LSU, putting a legal wrinkle on what is usually just another bitter SEC football matchup.
Umanmielen was served court papers tied to the lawsuit just before LSUs game against Ole Miss, and he now has to respond with discovery documents as the case moves forward. The suit seeks nearly $1 million in penalties and is aimed at sorting out revenue-sharing obligations between the schools, turning a familiar rivalry into something far messier than a Saturday in Oxford or Baton Rouge. [Read more 🡒]