Source shares with FootballScoop that Todd Cooley is planning to step down at Delta State and will join Golding at Ole Miss. We are told his role will be as assistant to the head coach and he will also serve a key role in high school relations.

Golding knows Delta State well, having played and coached there. Golding’s final two seasons on staff he served as the Statesmen’s defensive coordinator in 2010 and 2011. Cooley accepted the head coaching job for the program prior to the 2013 season after stops as the offensive coordinator at Arkansas Tech, Central Arkansas, and Northwestern State.

Since taking over at Delta State, Cooley has won 82 games, won at least 9 games in a season four times, and made the NCAA Division II playoffs four times.

In their trips to the postseason in 2014, 2017, 2022 and 2023, Delta State advanced to the second round of the tournament before bowing out with losses. Each of those seasons they also finished among the country’s top 25 teams in Division II as well, finishing among the top 10 in the AFCA poll at the conclusion of the 2022 season.

Cooley led the program to three Gulf South Conference titles, a small but powerful league that includes the likes of Valdosta State (D-II – GA) and West Florida (D-II) – both of which have appearances in the national title game in the past decade – along with West Alabama (D-II), and has also earned the league’s Coach of the Year honor four times (2013, 2014, and 2022).

Back in January of 2024, after going 21-4 over the previous two seasons, Cooley and the school agreed to a contract extension, but details of that deal were not made public.

His 13th season at the helm in 2025 ended on a high note a 7-3 mark overall while averaging over 36 points per game offensively, and allowing less than 20 points per game on defense.

Golding is a former Delta State player, where he starred at safety in the early 2000s before joining the staff as a graduate assistant immediately following his playing career. After just one season coaching he landed the defensive coordinator job at Tusculum, where he spent three seasons before returning to his alma mater as defensive coordinator, and has quickly risen through the ranks to. Southeastern Louisiana (FCS), to Southern Miss, and then UTSA before being hand-picked by Nick Saban to join the Crimson Tide staff in 2016 as co-defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach.

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