Pete Golding has no room for reflection as Ole Miss prepares for CFP

In a perfect world, new Ole Miss Rebels head coach Pete Golding could take some time to enjoy the moment.

One would have to imagine that being a head coach in a power conference has been a lifelong dream of his. He was the defensive coordinator at Alabama from 2018 to 2022, and he’s been at Ole Miss in the same position since then, but this is by far the biggest opportunity of his career.

Lane Kiffin leaving Ole Miss after an 11-1 season put him in this position. It also put him in the position of being the one to prepare the No. 6 Rebels for their first-round College Football Playoff matchup with the No. 11 Tulane Green Wave.

As such, Golding doesn’t have the time to reminisce about how he got to this point, and he really doesn’t want to focus on that anyhow.

He has a CFP game to prepare for amid the fallout of Kiffin skipping town to take the LSU Tigers’ open job.

“I think when you start getting caught up in moments and start taking pictures and do all that, your focus is on the wrong thing,” Golding said in a recent news conference. “And so for this, this is something, hopefully whenever that last game is and we put it forth our best effort, whatever the result of that is, then you’ll have some time to sit back and kind of look back on it and be able to evaluate it: Did you do it the right way? Could we do it better?”

Pete Golding and the Ole Miss Rebels are focused on Tulane

Golding is focused, and he’s clearly hoping that focus translates to his team. One would imagine it will, because the Rebels stayed focused during weeks of “will he, won’t he?” rumors regarding Kiffin. Not only did they make the CFP, but they finished the season on a five-game winning streak right in the middle of a media and rumor frenzy.

A good team takes the identity of its head coach. If the Rebels can quickly get in lock-step with Golding, they should be able to move past Tulane in the first round and start prepping for a Sugar Bowl matchup with the Georgia Bulldogs.

You can bet Golding won’t be getting ahead of himself, though. Right now, it’s all about Tulane, and there’s no time for anything else, and that includes enjoying the moment.

“But right now, you know, I’m not trying to enjoy anything. I’m trying to prepare extremely hard and get a good plan in place for these players and hold them accountable to practice the right way and prepare the right way to give them the best chance. So that would be at a later time. I’ll let my kids do that,” Golding said.