For a certain segment of Ole Miss fans, the idea of Pete Golding having any kind of friendly relationship with Lane Kiffin is basically Batman texting the Joker to check in.
It doesn’t fit the script. It doesn’t match the emotion. It doesn’t line up with how fans processed Kiffin’s exit or how they want Golding to feel about it.
But reality isn’t as simple as fans want it to be.
Coaches don’t live in the same world supporters do. They spend long hours together, share meeting rooms, travel, recruit, raise families in the same towns and build relationships that don’t disappear the moment someone takes another job.
Golding made that clear on Wednesday at SEC Media Days.
“I get this everywhere we go,” he said. “We’re on our Ole Miss caravan tour right now. Every Tuesday and Thursday, we take a couple of players and go around the country. We do question‑and‑answer sessions with everybody, and it’s always, ‘Tell me how you really feel about him.’”
Fans want a dramatic answer. Golding didn’t give them one.
“It’s this intimate environment (the caravan tour), but Lane and I are good,” he said.
Golding explained that he didn’t know Kiffin before coming to Ole Miss. They weren’t Alabama buddies. Their tenures in Tuscaloosa, Ala. didn’t overlap. He didn’t take the job because of Kiffin. He came to Oxford to raise three kids and coach football. Their relationship grew over three and a half years, and it grew in the way most coaching relationships do: through shared work, shared pressure and shared success.
“He did a lot for me, and I’m very appreciative of how he treated me and my family,” Golding said. “I learned a lot from him.”
That’s not betrayal. That’s life in the profession.
Golding didn’t pretend they talk about everything. He didn’t pretend the dynamic didn’t change once Kiffin left for LSU. But he also didn’t pretend that competitiveness erases respect.
“He texts me regularly,” Golding said. “There are certain things we talk about and certain things we don’t talk about. He’s very competitive, just like I’m very competitive.”
The part fans probably won’t love came next.
“I can separate the two. I know some people can’t.”
To be fair, some fans are able to separate the two and understand it. But go to an Ole Miss message board and you’ll find at least post from someone dumbfounded they have a positive relationship.
Golding even offered a hypothetical that cuts straight through the emotion.
“I told an Ole Miss group the other day—and I probably shouldn’t say this, but I don’t care—if I told you in 2021 that you could look ahead to 2025, be 11‑1 and going to the playoff, but your coach was leaving, would you take it? Hell yeah, you would.”
He’s right. Fans would have taken it. Everyone won. Ole Miss made the playoff. Kiffin got a job he wanted. Keith Carter made a strong hire. Golding got an opportunity he wasn’t expecting.
“Every place isn’t for everybody,” Golding said. “That applies to coaches, players, your job and everything else. That’s OK.”
He even admitted he told Kiffin he thought leaving was dumb. Not because he hated him. Because he loved being the defensive coordinator and didn’t want the situation to change.
“That was a selfish decision because I loved being the defensive coordinator where I was,” Golding said. “But he decided what was better for him and his family. That’s for him to decide.”
And then he said the part fans need to hear, even if they don’t want to.
“I have no ill will toward him at all. I wish him the best of luck. We’ll play him like every other SEC team. We’re both going to show up, spot the ball and play.”
That’s the truth. Golding isn’t going to treat Kiffin like a villain. He isn’t going to carry the emotional weight fans carry. He isn’t going to pretend a three‑year relationship didn’t exist. He’s going to compete against LSU the same way he competes against everyone else.
Fans may want Batman versus Joker. Golding is fine with coach versus coach. And that’s the healthier way to live in this sport.
