OXFORD, Miss. — A relatively quiet offseason on Lane Kiffin’s coaching staff is quiet no longer.
On Saturday afternoon, Mississippi officially announced the hiring of Alabama football defensive coordinator Pete Golding to fill the same role in Oxford.
‘We are excited to add a championship caliber coach like Pete Golding to our staff,’ Kiffin said in a statement. ‘At multiple stops in his career, Coach Golding has directed some of college football’s top defenses. He is also an outstanding recruiter and understands the level of talent necessary to compete at the highest level.’
Golding had served as a defensive play-caller for Nick Saban since 2018.
After winning the national championship with the SEC’s top-scoring defense in 2020, Alabama has finished with the third- and second-ranked defense in the conference over the past two seasons.
Mississippi’s statement did not mention the future of previous co-defensive coordinators Chris Partridge and Maurice Crum.
Golding, who has previously coached at Southern Miss and Delta State, got his first FBS defensive coordinator position with Texas-San Antonio in 2016. Since then, his defenses have never finished outside the top three among conference peers in points allowed.
He has been a strong recruiter. 247Sports credits him with signing 15 top-100 prospects over the course of his career, including four five-star athletes. Recently, he helped lead Alabama’s pursuit of Suntarine Perkins, a Mississippi signee and the top player in Mississippi in this cycle. He spoke to Perkins on the field after Perkins won the 3A state title in Hattiesburg last month.
Partridge has spent the last three seasons coordinating the Mississippi defense in a joint capacity. Crum arrived from Western Kentucky to join him in that role ahead of the 2022 season.
Mississippi finished ninth in the SEC, allowing 25.5 points per game in 2022. That’s a slight uptick from 2021, when the Rebels allowed 24.7 points per contest. The 5.3 yards per play surrendered by the Rebels ranked sixth in the conference.
The conclusion to the season, though, was troubling. The Rebels allowed 34.5 points per game as they lost four in a row to finish, giving up 42 points on the road against Arkansas and in the Texas Bowl against Texas Tech.
Kiffin hinted at changes after the Texas Bowl, when asked about his staff outlook in the context of the season-ending slide.
‘We’ve won 10 games and made changes,” he said. “So, we’ll look at everything in our program. I’m sure there’ll be some changes made in some areas. Because I think the good thing about our fans, they know about me, this is not acceptable. This makes us 8-5 and to finish the season like that and come down here and do that. There’ll be some changes made.”
