Pete Golding didn’t just answer questions at SEC media days on Wednesday. He unloaded.
The first-year Ole Miss coach spent part of his appearance in Tampa, Fla., pushing back hard against the tampering criticism that has followed him this offseason, arguing that the sport’s current setup has created the very mess people are complaining about.
“Let’s not act like recruiting in college football for the last 100 years is the most moral thing that’s ever existed,” Golding said Wednesday. “What are we talking about here?”
Golding, who took over for Lane Kiffin during the College Football Playoff, has been accused by Clemson coach Dabo Swinney of tampering in an effort to land linebacker Luke Ferrelli. That case is under NCAA investigation.
When Golding was first asked about the allegation and how he felt about it, he brushed it aside. But a follow-up about how tampering could be fixed opened the door for a much longer answer, one that centered on what he sees as a broken system.
“Would you quit your job before interviewing for another job or being offered another job?” Golding said.
“No, no. Nobody would, right?
But we have a portal that you can go in with a ‘do not contact’ (designation). I’m going to quit my job where I’m getting paid, and I’m going to go in saying, ‘I need a new job, but nobody can call me to interview.’
What have we created? …
“It’s their (players and their agents) responsibility to make sure they get paid really well and they also have opportunities. So by design, it’s put a lot of people in bad positions.”
He also drew a direct line between player movement and the way coaching searches work behind the scenes.
“Like coaches, we’re under contract,” he said. “You don’t think other ADs are calling us during the year? Same ones that are bitching about all this stuff are the same ones calling coaches to come to other schools.”
The Rebels have become one of the clearest examples of both sides of the modern college football model. Under Kiffin, Ole Miss leaned into NIL and the portal and turned itself into one of the SEC’s most successful programs.
But the program has also been under scrutiny: the NCAA and College Sports Commission opened separate investigations into Ole Miss in January, according to documents previously obtained by The Athletic. The NCAA inquiry sought phone records from Golding and others in December and January during transfer season, while the CSC reviewed NIL and revenue-sharing deals tied to a transfer.
Ole Miss is also considering legal action to recover buyout money from two former players who transferred to LSU.
Golding’s comments about Kiffin, though, were far less combustible. Even after Kiffin left for LSU before the first round of the Playoff, Golding said there’s no bad blood.
He said he didn’t know Kiffin well before arriving at Ole Miss, but their relationship grew over Golding’s three seasons as defensive coordinator. Golding said he valued the way Kiffin treated him, and he also appreciated the unexpected head coaching chance that came when Kiffin departed. The two still keep in touch.
“I have no ill will toward Coach Kiffin,” Golding said. “He texts me on a regular basis. There’s certain things that we’ll talk about, and there’s certain things that we don’t talk about.”
Not everyone around Oxford, Miss., is on Golding’s side, and he said he’s heard from frustrated fans while making speaking stops around Mississippi. But he pushed back by pointing to the results.
Would an Ole Miss fan in 2021 have signed up for an 11-1 season and a CFP run in 2025, even if it meant losing the coach who helped get them there?
“Hell, yeah, you would,” Golding said. “Everybody won from it. It’s OK.”
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