Photo: Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss passes under pressure from LSU linebacker TJ Dottery, September 19, 2026, at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Petre Thomas-Imagn Images.
Built from Pete Golding’s Florida preview press conference, Monday, September 21, 2026, in Oxford.
Pete Golding stood at a podium Monday afternoon, two days after the biggest regular-season win of his head coaching career, and gave a game-plan decision back. Nobody in the room asked him to.
The question he actually got was a stacked one about the injury report — where Jalyn Crawford and Makhi Frazier stood, and whether Caleb Cunningham’s near-absence against LSU had been injury or design. Golding answered the Cunningham half first, and he did not hedge it.
“I think Caleb’s was more from a game plan standpoint. That’s probably something as coaches looking back on it and the flow and how it was going and where it was at that we probably wish we had over again, you know, to be honest with you. And I got to do a better job with that.”
Then, two answers later, unprompted, he came back to it: “But Caleb probably definitely should, looking back, should have been more involved.”
That is worth sitting with. Eight days earlier, Cunningham had caught six balls for 65 yards against Charlotte in his first real action, and Golding had volunteered after that game that he could be a big piece of this offense. Then Ole Miss played its biggest home game in years and Cunningham barely appeared. Coaches protect the plan after a win — the win is the argument. Golding gave it back instead.
Kewan Lacy: better than they feared, and a game-time decision
The first question of the press conference was the one everybody wanted, and the answer was good news.
“Got an MRI yesterday morning, so it wasn’t nearly as bad as we thought it was. So he’s going through the rehab process right now, and we’ll monitor the reps throughout the week. It will be a game-time decision.”
A negative X-ray Saturday night, an MRI Sunday morning that came back better than feared, rehab this week with the rep count watched, and a call made Saturday in Gainesville. That is about as good as the Monday after a running back goes down gets.
JT Lindsey did not play because someone got hurt
This is the part that got lost in the noise. JT Lindsey was not an in-game emergency substitution. He was the plan, and the plan was set days earlier.
Asked whether Makhi Frazier’s absence was a coach’s decision or an injury, Golding said Frazier “got banged up last week during practice, so had minimized reps throughout the week. And so JT had a lot of those banked reps, so he was the most ready to play.”
That is a Wednesday decision showing up on a Saturday, which is a very different thing from a panic. And Golding liked what came of it: “I thought JT came in, was really explosive, did a really nice job.” He credited the room’s coaching, too — “I think Frank does a really good job with them” — and noted those backs had banked a lot of camp experience.
Jalyn Crawford has turf toe, and Golding was blunt about it
The Crawford update was the least encouraging thing Golding said, mostly because of how clearly he framed the problem.
“He was in a really good spot early in camp, and then the turf toe became a real thing. That’s really tough at that position. So if you can’t run and you play corner, it’s kind of a liability.”
Crawford was scheduled to practice Tuesday, and Golding said the staff will take it day by day from there. He also made a point of saying the development had been real before the injury interrupted it: “He’s always been a really good man player. Some of the combo coverages and things like that, he’s improving on daily, but he was in a good place kind of before this occurred.”
The same rep-count logic that put Lindsey on the field kept Crawford and Frazier off it. Golding was explicit: the two of them missed the LSU game “based on the rep count throughout the week of actually getting the snaps needed in order for us to feel good that they can go in and play winning football.”
The secondary got two starters back, and it showed
Sharif Denson and Antonio Kite both returned against LSU, and Golding’s read on them was specific rather than general. On Denson, the concern going in had not been knowledge — it had been live reps.
“I knew he knew it and he understood it. He’s got a lot of experience but hadn’t got a lot of live tackling reps versus elite people, having missed the first couple games. So I thought he did a really good job in space for the most part.”
Kite “played really well” and “got a little banged up towards the end as well,” per Golding, who added that he “came in there and gave us everything he had.” Ladarian Clardy — “Squirrel” at the podium — came in and did well, and Golding singled out Andy Jaffe’s communication and Nick Cull.
The stated goal has not changed since Charlotte: “when we can get five to six guys back there that could get on a constant rotation, that stay fresh, that communicate better, they play better in space.”
Tahj Butler is a starter who is not starting
Asked for a read on Tahj Butler, Golding restated a position he has held since the opener — that Ole Miss has three starting linebackers and rotates them on merit.
“He’s a guy that’s tough, competitive, and he loves football. He works his butt off. He prepares extremely hard. He’s got a quick trigger. I think he’s really, really instinctive. … But he’s like having a starter. Every week we grade it and it’s like, hey, which two running out first? It’s going to be based on who grades best this week. But I view him as a starter.”
He also would not let the group off on tackling: “all three of those guys got to do a little better tackling in space with their angles. All three of them put some missed tackles on tape.”
The second-half adjustment story, killed at the podium
The last question of the press conference was about LSU’s third quarter, and Golding did not take the exit that was offered to him. He took the other one.
“I just love the comments after, man, that was unbelievable second half adjustments. Like, we didn’t make one new call, we didn’t do s—, right? The guys executed the call how they were supposed to. It was great adjustments, right?”
His actual explanation was simpler and less flattering to everybody: “sometimes you have good first half because they miss open opportunities or they turn the football over, and they don’t execute.” Ole Miss came out of the locker room with a three-and-out — “We came out with a 3-and-out. We still gave up 17 points in the third quarter, right? Does that make sense?” — and then turned the football over and handed LSU the ball at the 30.
“When you continue to give good offenses more opportunities with good field position, they’re going to score points.”
He took two specific third downs himself, and the mechanism he described is worth keeping: “You cannot do that and somebody’s man’s playing, or you could try to do that and 10 of the 11 get it and one doesn’t, and it might be a first down but it’s not a touchdown. And that happened on two third downs. There were a couple of those things that were on me for sure.”
What Golding sees on the Florida tape
The scout came out in layers, and it started with the quarterback. Aaron Philo, who followed Buster Faulkner to Gainesville from Georgia Tech, got the best kind of compliment a defensive coach gives.
“I think the quarterback, how comfortable he’s playing and really managing the offense and making really good decisions. He reminds me of a coach’s kid on tape, man. He’s tough as nails. He’s really smart. You can tell them they snap one over the head and he’s just telling everybody calm down, relax. Got a really good demeanor.”
On Jadan Baugh: “the running back, who we’ve played against, is an elite player. I think one of the best backs in the country.” On Faulkner, whom Golding called “one of the best in the country” and a fellow Division II guy: “his versatility with personnel and offense, he’s always done an unbelievable job of formationing you and shifting and motioning and creating matchups to be able to run the football. Very innovative.”
And the week’s real problem, in Golding’s own framing:
“It’s one thing, here’s a stationary picture and here are the tells. It’s another one when they start in a formation, they shift to unbalanced, then they motion and they run the same play. It’s the same play, but to our guys, it don’t look the same. And so that’s what this week is, right? It’s the circus, right? And surviving the circus to get the ball snapped and be able to still do your job.”
Asked how Florida’s run scheme compares to Louisville’s, he said the Gators are “probably more gap-oriented,” with “a little more stretch generated with the bend-back component.”
He was equally direct about Brad White’s defense, which he has seen before: White was Kentucky’s coordinator when the Wildcats won in Oxford. “They’re very, very sound in the back end, multiple in coverage. A lot of odd structures in the front that make the ball go east and west. So they leverage the ball really well. And his teams have always tackled really well in space. But they’re very disciplined. They got really good eye control.”
“If they’re overlooking anybody, there’s something wrong with them”
Golding’s last trip to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium was as Ole Miss’s defensive coordinator in 2024, and he brought it up himself before anyone else could.
“My last memory of going to this place was being number 14 in the country versus a 5-5 football team and getting beat, all right? Much less being a top 25 team like they are right now. And them being a top 25 team at their home place, their 80 percent win percentage in the last 10 years — that’s a hard place to play. So if they’re overlooking anybody and they’re reading all their s— for this week, there’s something wrong with them.”
He said a version of it twice, which is usually the tell for what a coach actually came to say. The second time: “if there’s anybody in this building that’s overlooking this game, there’s something wrong with them. Hopefully our guys understand, don’t work this hard to put yourself in the position and then not do what it takes.”
He also volunteered where Ole Miss actually sits four days out, and it was not a victory lap: “Are we where we want to be? No. I’m not going to sit here and lie to you. … To me, in this profession, you start getting comfortable, you start getting your a– beat.”
Ole Miss is 3-0, 1-0 in the SEC, and No. 4 in this week’s AP poll. The Rebels play at No. 21 Florida on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
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