Texas has lost two straight, Arch Manning is being picked apart across the country, and the Longhorns may be without the best pass rusher in college football on Saturday. Pete Golding is not buying any of it.
The conception of that he’s not an elite player right now is crazy to me. All right, you can go watch up and I’ll get you a 25-play cut-up and he should be the top pick in the draft.
That was the Ole Miss head coach on Monday, five days before No. 7 Ole Miss plays at No. 19 Texas. Golding called Manning “a size-speed guy” with “all the arm talent in the world” who is “much more athletic than you think” and “still has the ability to extend plays.”
“A lot of it to me has been bad luck”
Golding worked with Steve Sarkisian at Alabama, and he did not hedge on the Texas head coach. “I think he’s one of the best play callers in the country, and it’s not close,” he said. His explanation for back-to-back 27-24 losses to Oklahoma and Florida was not the one most people are giving.
When you watch them on tape, they’ve had a lot of bad luck. I mean, there’s a lot of things if you actually watch the tape, hitting guys in stride, hits them in the chest, ball bounces off, get a pick, you know, all those type of things. So I think somehow it’s been lost that they’ve beat the number 1 team in the country.
Texas beat then-No. 1 Ohio State 24-23 on Sept. 12, according to the Ole Miss game notes, and won at Tennessee two weeks later. “They know their back’s up against the wall,” Golding said, “and we’re going to get their best shot.”
The plan: stop the run with four
Golding laid out how a Sarkisian offense hurts you. Texas wants to run the ball to set up play-action, and if that works on early downs, he said, “now you’re one-on-one with a first-round draft pick and you don’t like the matchup.”
We got to be violent up front. We got to do a really good job on the perimeter setting edges. And then the second level has got to be erasers because these backs are good players.
He called Texas’s two backs “a really good 1-2 punch that would start at most places in the country” and noted that “one of them’s a little banged up right now, at least what I’m reading right now.” Orangebloods reported Monday that Hollywood Smothers is questionable.
On the other side of the ball, Golding said the Texas defense starts with a front that is “really explosive” and able to “create a lot of pressure with 4.” Yahoo Sports reported Monday that Colin Simmons, who leads the FBS with 10.5 sacks, is out multiple weeks with a high ankle sprain. Texas has not confirmed it.
“False confidence”
The sharpest thing Golding said was aimed at his own locker room, two days after Ole Miss held No. 13 Missouri to three points. Asked what keeps a team consistent, he named good players, stability in the system and accountability, and said the last one is the hardest after an emotional win.
I think sometimes there’s a false confidence that’s created based on outcomes. And we look at scoreboards and we won the game, but it really wasn’t based on our body of work and our preparation and the things that we did. We might have got lucky, right?
He said there were “some other things on that tape that we still got to clean up” and “some things that we’ve gotten away with that we’re about to play a really elite football team that we’re not.”
He also pushed back on the idea that the defense got simpler after the loss at Florida. “I don’t know how much simpler it is,” he said. “It wasn’t a new call.” What changed, he said, was the attention to detail and the focus, and the staff cut things the defense was not executing. “Some of them were very simple. We’re just not very good at it.”
Carneiro, Lacy and the linebackers
Golding said Lucas Carneiro’s foot is the reason Peter McStravick has taken over kickoffs. “The foot’s kind of been an issue that we really didn’t realize going into Florida,” he said, calling the two kickers “a good 1-2 combination right now that we’ll use moving forward.”
Kewan Lacy, a Dallas native, heads home with the same weekly plan. “It’s not like he’s forgot how to play football,” Golding said. He pointed to ball security as a work point and recalled Lacy putting himself back into the Missouri game after “a different little bit of an injury.” Lacy told him, “Coach, I’m good.”
On Luke Ferrelli, Golding said “athletic ability has never been the issue” and that his technique work showed up against Missouri. “He’s going to be a really good football player.” On Tah’j Butler: “To me, Tah’j is Mr. Consistent.” And on Blake Purchase: “I think he’s really comfortable right now.”
Ole Miss (5-1, 3-1 SEC) plays at Texas on Saturday, Oct. 24, at 6:30 p.m. CT on ABC from DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium. More all week at olemisshub.com. Hotty Toddy 🦈
Quotes from Pete Golding’s Texas week press conference, Oct. 19, 2026. Records and rankings via Ole Miss Athletics game notes. Photo: Pete Golding, October 17, 2026, at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Petre Thomas-Imagn Images.