If you’ve seen a lot of college football, you knew the game after one like Ole Miss’ game against LSU can be tricky.
The emotions run high, the celebration lasts a little longer than it should and the next opponent sometimes gets lost in the glow.
That’s how seasons slip. That’s how 2024 slipped. But if you listen to this Ole Miss team, they sound like a group that understands why first-year coach Pete Golding spent the entire week hammering home the idea of moving on.
And more importantly, they sound like a group that actually believes it.
Defensive end Blake Purchase didn’t hide how much Saturday meant to him. It was his first SEC game, his first taste of that kind of atmosphere, and he admitted it was everything he hoped it would be.
“First of all, that was an amazing game. The crowd was crazy. It was a great experience and a great atmosphere,” he said. “It was my first SEC game, so that was really cool, just playing an SEC team for the first time.”
But he didn’t stay in that moment long.
“I actually walked home after the game, and I was thinking, ‘Man, we have to play a good Florida team in seven days.’ You have to enjoy the good game and be happy, then move on to the next one,” Purchase said. “It’s the SEC. You have a tough game every week.”
That’s the mindset Golding wanted. That’s the mindset Ole Miss didn’t always have under the previous staff, especially heading into Gainesville two years ago when its playoff hopes evaporated in one afternoon. This group seems determined not to repeat that mistake.
Purchase said the shift happened fast.
“That was really PG’s main thing: on to the next game,” he said. “We didn’t come here just to win that game. It was a big game and a big week for everybody, but we won it. Now it’s on to the next one. You can’t live in the past. It’s all about what you do tomorrow and in the next game.”
Tight end Blake Odom echoed the same message. For him, the transition from LSU to Florida wasn’t some emotional hurdle. It was routine.
“I think it’s easy for us,” Odom said. “PG and the coaching staff do a great job of making sure that once Sunday comes, we watch the film, do the walkthroughs and make the corrections, everything after that is about flipping the page and looking straight ahead.”
He didn’t pretend the LSU win wasn’t emotional. He just made it clear the emotion wasn’t going to linger.
“That’s what has been preached to us as a team, just keep moving forward,” he said. “Coming off an emotional weekend, I think it’ll be easy for us to focus on what we have to do next.”
And then there’s Sharif Denson, who doesn’t need any reminders about Florida because he lived it. He spent last season in Gainesville. He knows the stadium, the locker room, the players. If anyone was going to drift into nostalgia, it would be him. But he didn’t.
“It’s a different coaching staff with a different defensive coordinator and head coach,” Denson said. “I left before I even talked to them, so I don’t really have any connection with them.”
What he does have is a competitive itch.
“Playing against my old teammates, though, that’s going to be fun,” he said. “It’s going to be an experience, definitely getting back on the field with them.”
Ole Miss doesn’t get style points for saying the right things in September. But it does matter that the players sound aligned with Golding’s message. It matters that they aren’t treating LSU like a season-defining moment. It matters that they’re talking about Florida the way good teams talk about the next challenge.
They’ve said the right things. Now they get to prove they mean them.
