☕ Morning Coffee
A caller got on Paul Finebaum’s show, named this podcast, named me, called Pete Golding a clown, and made exactly one argument you can actually check.
He said Golding couldn’t get a pass rush with Will Anderson and Dallas Turner.
Will Anderson Jr. played three seasons in Pete Golding’s defense at Alabama. Seven sacks in 2020. Seventeen and a half sacks and thirty-four and a half tackles for loss in 2021 — both of those in the same season. Ten more in 2022.
Over those last two years he won back-to-back Bronko Nagurski Trophies as the best defensive player in college football, back-to-back SEC Defensive Player of the Year awards, and was a unanimous All-American twice. In 2022 he added the Bednarik, the Lombardi and the Lott.
That’s not an opinion. That’s the award ballot.
The second name is worse for him. Dallas Turner arrived at Alabama in 2021 and had his breakout season in 2023 — after Golding had already left for Oxford. If you’re going to name two players, it helps to check which years they played for the man.
And I’m not going to spend a newsletter going after a guy who called a radio station. He’s a fan, he’s mad, and he picked up a phone. I’ve felt that way. But build the case on something that survives a date check.
🏈 The Numbers
| 7 | Career games Pete Golding has coached, total |
| 6 | Of those seven that came against ranked teams |
| 4-2 | His record in them |
| No. 4 & No. 8 | Where Miami and Florida — the only teams to beat him — sit this morning |
| 17.5 | Will Anderson’s sacks in 2021, with 34.5 tackles for loss |
| 2 | Top-ten wins in seven games: No. 3 Georgia, No. 7 LSU |
One more nobody has mentioned: Saturday in Gainesville was the first true road game Pete Golding has ever coached. Tulane was in Oxford. The Sugar Bowl and the playoff semifinal were neutral sites. Louisville was Nashville. Charlotte and LSU were at home.
A correction, because I’d rather do it myself. On the show I said those two were the only top-ten wins Ole Miss has had in sixty years. That’s wrong. Ole Miss beat No. 2 Alabama 43-37 in 2015 — eleven years ago, and nothing to do with Golding. Two top-ten wins in seven career games stands on its own. It never needed the sixty years.
🛡️ Two Legends, One Instruction
We had John Fourcade on Tuesday and Bill Flowers on Wednesday. They came at the defense from completely different directions and arrived at the same place.
Fourcade said the problem is the calendar. Golding runs a version of Nick Saban’s match-coverage system, and that system was built for players with three years in it. The portal gives you one. And a transfer doesn’t arrive empty — he arrives having to unlearn somebody else’s defense first.
Flowers said the problem is the call sheet. Read your key, and if he does this you do this, and if he does that you do that — until eleven men are thinking instead of playing. His fix is structural: go to a 4-3, put a third linebacker in the box, say out loud that the identity is stopping the run, and cut the calls down to about five.
He described the Florida tape better than anyone has. Both middle linebackers flowing one direction, and a hole sitting wide open in the space where a third linebacker would have been standing. Hat on a hat, perfect calls, every time.
And the honest counterweight, which he raised himself: going 4-3 means taking a defensive back off the field, and the secondary is the part that has held up. You’re choosing which problem you’d rather have. But you do have to choose.
🔮 Next
| Oct 3 | Open date |
| Oct 10 | at Vanderbilt |
| Oct 17 | Missouri |
| Oct 24 | at Texas |
| Oct 31 | Auburn |
| Nov 7 | Georgia |
Ten days to Nashville. And a second correction while I’m here, because I said this two days running: Vanderbilt beat Tennessee 45-24 last November, not a 50 spot. First win over the Vols since 2018. They finished 10-3, ranked 14th, after losing the ReliaQuest Bowl — which is outside the playoff field, not a snub from inside it. Forty-five is plenty. It didn’t need rounding.
Vanderbilt is 3-1 right now with a five-star true freshman at quarterback. Jared Curtis made his first career start against NC State, trailed 24-7 in the third quarter, and won 35-31. Clark Lea is in year six. Ole Miss should still be favored. That is not the same thing as it handling itself.
📻 The Day on Locked On Ole Miss
The Flagship — the full Finebaum call, the Will Anderson years, what seven career games actually look like, Tah’j Butler, and a closing argument about bringing the red numbers back.
The guest episode — Bill Flowers. The 4-3 argument, why two linebackers can’t fit an SEC power running game, and the plan for a true freshman quarterback in Nashville: blitz five or six every snap, don’t get clever, put a clock on him.
Both men are off next week and back after the Vanderbilt game.
🔗 Five Clicks
1. Will Anderson Jr.’s season-by-season numbers
Go look at 2021 yourself. 17.5 sacks, 34.5 tackles for loss, and the award list underneath it.
2. Ole Miss hadn’t played a true road game under Pete Golding
Written before Gainesville, which is what makes it useful. Saturday was the first one.
3. Vanderbilt’s 2025 season
The receipt for the correction above. 10-3, beat Tennessee 45-24, finished 14th.
4. Tah’j Butler’s roster page
Georgia Tech transfer, arrived in January, 26 games in Atlanta. The guy to watch coming out of the bye.
5. Ole Miss 43, No. 2 Alabama 37 — 2015
The game that proves my sixty-years line wrong. Worth rewatching anyway.
💬 Join the Everydayers
The bye week thread is open in the LOOM Private Discord — free to join. This morning’s argument: do you run the 4-3 against Vanderbilt, or is the secondary too good to take a defensive back off the field?
Everything else lives at olemisshub.com, and if you want the show ad-free plus the members-only room, take your fandom to the next level with the Everydayer Club.
Hotty Toddy. 🦈
