Pete Golding is seven games into his run as Ole Miss head coach, and six of the seven came against ranked opponents. He is 4-2 in them, with a 39-34 Sugar Bowl win over a third-ranked Georgia and a 32-24 win over a seventh-ranked LSU. The two losses, a playoff semifinal and Saturday’s 52-28 at Florida, came against teams currently ranked fourth and eighth.
Locked On Ole Miss host Steven Willis spent Wednesday’s episode on a caller who used a national radio show to call Golding a clown and to name the show directly. Willis said the name-calling was a fan’s business, but the argument underneath it was wrong in a way that took four minutes to disprove.
The caller’s one checkable claim was that Golding could not generate a pass rush at Alabama with two edge rushers he named. The first put up 17.5 sacks in Golding’s defense and won back-to-back Bronko Nagurski Trophies as college football’s best defensive player, plus back-to-back SEC Defensive Player of the Year honors. The second’s breakout came in 2023, after Golding had left for Oxford.
Willis argued the real issue is sample size. The Sugar Bowl was nine months ago, and the front seven being called soft this week is essentially the group that beat Georgia, under the same coordinator and head coach. Saturday in Gainesville was also Golding’s first true road game as a head coach.
Ole Miss has two weeks before Vanderbilt in Nashville on Oct. 10, and Willis named Tahj Butler as the player the bye should elevate. The junior linebacker transferred in from Georgia Tech in January and graded out near the top of the defense at Florida. Willis warned that Vanderbilt is 3-1 with a five-star true freshman at quarterback and a head coach in his sixth year.
Photo: Pete Golding, September 26, 2026, at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images.
Adapted from the September 30, 2026 episode of Locked On Ole Miss, hosted by Steven Willis, part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Watch the full episode.