{"id":826430,"date":"2026-05-27T22:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T22:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/826430\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T22:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T22:25:13","slug":"ole-miss-coach-pete-golding-navigating-post-lane-kiffin-era-pushes-back-on-ncaa-tampering-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/826430\/","title":{"rendered":"Ole Miss coach Pete Golding navigating post-Lane Kiffin era, pushes back on NCAA tampering investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. \u2013<\/strong> Pete Golding<\/a><\/strong> has spent the spring watching Ole Miss<\/a><\/strong> take verbal shots from SEC peers. He was also publicly accused of tampering by Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney<\/a><\/strong> in January. <\/p>\n

Addressing media members at SEC spring meetings on Wednesday, Golding made clear he\u2019s not caught up on everyone else\u2019s opinions of Ole Miss. <\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t care less what everybody else thinks of us,\u201d Golding said<\/a>. \u201cI think our players understand, there\u2019s a bull\u2019s eye and a circle on them now based on their success and what they\u2019ve done on the field. They\u2019ve got to be able to block out the noise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Golding stepped in as the Ole Miss head coach when Lane Kiffin<\/a><\/strong> exited for LSU<\/a><\/strong> before the College Football Playoff run. The Rebels\u2019 defensive coordinator picked up two wins in the CFP before falling to Miami in the semifinals to Miami. <\/p>\n

Kiffin\u2019s departure remains a topic Golding has had to navigate this offseason. He said on Wednesday that he\u2019s still in communication with his former boss. Earlier this week, Kiffin suggested Ole Miss could have won the national title last year if he coached through the CFP and Golding stayed as defensive coordinator in the booth. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that had any impact on why we didn\u2019t win the\u00a0Miami\u00a0game,\u201d Golding said.<\/p>\n

Swinney\u2019s public accusation of Ole Miss and Golding\u2019s tampering is well known at this point. Swinney took aim at the Rebels, openly stating that the Rebels\u2019 flipping Cal<\/a><\/strong> transfer linebacker Luke Ferrelli<\/a><\/strong> from Clemson was a \u201cstraightforward case of tampering.\u201d Ferrelli signed a rev-sharing contract with Clemson and moved to campus, just to unenroll and join Ole Miss. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of things make headlines,\u201d Golding said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more people involved that everybody might not know. Everyone wants clarity. Enforcement about a lot of these things is a real problem. I\u2019m not going to sit up here and say whatever we did or we didn\u2019t do, was it right or was it wrong? But, you know, when you go through what we went through (with tampering), and what you\u2019re seeing day-in and day-out, some things you feel like shouldn\u2019t matter that they\u2019re making a big deal about.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about the enforcement about it, that\u2019s what everybody wants. What are the rules going to be in place, and are they going to be enforced? Up to this point, that hasn\u2019t happened. <\/p>\n

Sources throughout the spring told On3 that Golding has told Ole Miss confidants that the NCAA knows he is willing to take down competitors if the Rebels are hit with tampering penalties. Sources have said Golding would be willing to expose more than 15 other schools of tampering. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about tampering, you don\u2019t think coaches get tampered with?\u201d Golding said on Wednesday. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about the new Kiffin rule and all this shit, but who do you think is meeting with these [coaches] and offering them a job? Where we\u2019re at in college football is not a really good place right now. A lot of things make headlines and there\u2019s a lot more people involved that everybody might not know at this point. <\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 Some things you feel shouldn\u2019t matter that they\u2019re making a big deal about, but I think it\u2019s about the enforcement of it, and that\u2019s what everybody wants. What are the rules and is everybody going to be held accountable to the same standard? Up to this point, that hasn\u2019t been the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Golding later referenced the issue of tampering relating to former Ole Miss linebacker T.J. Dottery<\/a><\/strong>, who transferred to LSU to follow Kiffin.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot comparing [Ferrelli] to a guy who\u2019s been a starter somewhere that wasn\u2019t in the portal that\u2019s at a new school now after going to a semifinal \u2014 like what are we doing?\u201d Golding said. \u201cThat\u2019s the piece where everybody\u2019s at. There\u2019s an enforcement of [Ferrelli], who just took an, but there\u2019s not an enforcement of [Dottery], who was here for three years, and he\u2019s been tampered with the entire time? What are we doing?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Pete Golding has spent the spring watching Ole Miss take verbal shots from SEC…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":826431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,243282,1317,1315,1316,206396,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-826430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-luke-ferrelli-24-carlsbad","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-pete-golding","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116648891465249552","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}