As part of the preseason hype train of college football, plenty of media outlets publish rankings of all sorts.
Who has the best quarterback, best linebackers, best stadium atmospheres, best stadium food and so on. A popular one, especially for outlets covering the SEC, is ranking the conference’s head coaches. The criteria is pretty simple and usually boils down to who wins the most.
That’s why Georgia’s Kirby Smart sits atop each of these rankings. It’s also why Ole Miss coach Pete Golding tends to land in the bottom half.
As fun as he is and as dramatic as his promotion was, Golding is 2-1 as a head coach. Not just at Ole Miss, but for his entire career. That’s an incredibly small sample size. Yes, the sample came in a wild stretch and all three games were College Football Playoff games. But it’s not enough to say he can run a successful program over multiple seasons.
This could end up looking more like the Matt Luke era than the five years Lane Kiffin spent in Oxford. Nothing Golding has done or said in the last nine months points toward trouble. In fact, it’s been the opposite. The hype in Oxford is real. The support for Golding is strong.
As a fellow Delta State alumnus, I hope Golding is successful. But we don’t know yet, and we won’t know until the games start.
That’s why comments like the one from ESPN’s Paul Finebaum aren’t bad or unfair. They’re realistic. A caller asked Finebaum what his outlook for Golding is this season, and here’s what he said:
“You would have to work pretty hard to mess up this team with the talent it has. But I have some doubts about whether Golding can replicate last season because it’s a completely different situation, as has been recited ad nauseam since he took over.
“I was impressed with what I saw from him when we sat down in May and again last week. But how will he manage in the moment? It’s different. Lane Kiffin ended up receiving no credit for what he built there. He built the program. It was his program, and he walked out on it.
“We all know what the reaction was, but Golding has to survive a couple of very difficult moments. I think the Louisville game will be a test. I don’t think that game is a slam dunk. Ole Miss should win, but how does Golding handle that weekend? It will be unlike anything he has encountered.
“He has done very well, and I think he’s up for the moment. But dealing with Kiffin and the talent on the other side later in the season will be remarkable.
“I’m not as high on Ole Miss this year as many people were last week.”
Many folks in Oxford aren’t ready to admit Kiffin did a remarkable job and helped build Ole Miss into a budding powerhouse. But if you look past that part of Finebaum’s comments, he makes a fair point.
So far, everything Golding has done has worked. He kept key players. He recruited a top 20 transfer portal class. He got through spring without major injuries. He handled SEC Media Days well.
It’s all gone smoothly. But if Golding wants to climb into the top tier of SEC head coach rankings, he still has plenty of work ahead.
