While SEC Media Days are still nearly two months away, the conference is holding its annual Spring meetings this week in Destin, Florida. For their part, most coaches at least give some comment during the meetings. It’s often not in-depth, but more about answering a few quick questions from reporters. And Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding is no different. While he spoke, he kept it short and said little. But what he did say proved to be enough to raise a few eyebrows.
So what did the first-year head coach have to say during his brief statements at the Spring meetings? And more importantly, was it important enough to really make the comments anyway?
Golding’s Comments at SEC Spring Meetings
Responding to Comments about Academics
Most of his comments were short and sweet, and he showed respect for his fellow coaches. At one point, he was asked about Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian’s recent comments about academics at Ole Miss. When discussing the academic quality at Texas, he poked at Ole Miss, saying, “We have a rule at the University of Texas, we can only take 50% towards your degree, no matter how many hours you’ve completed. Other schools can take all of your hours that you take. But at Ole Miss, they can take you. All you have to do is take basket weaving, and you can get an Ole Miss degree. To me, that’s an inequity in our sport. Those are some of the things that we have to work through.”
Clearly, the naming of Ole Miss raised eyebrows at the time. However, Golding says that he didn’t take offense to it. He added that Sarkisian contacted him when it came out, telling him it was a comment that was taken out of context. To wrap up his answer about the brief controversy from Sarkisian’s comments, Golding jokingly said, “I told him I appreciate it. I know if I’m going to transfer, I’d much rather take basket weaving than biology.”
What Did Golding Say About Lane Kiffin
Another popular topic this offseason is the vitriol between the Ole Miss and LSU fanbases, following Lane Kiffin’s departure from Oxford to take over at LSU. And while there’s plenty of animosity from Rebel fans towards Kiffin, that animosity doesn’t make its way to Golding. In the past, Golding has been extremely open about his friendship with Kiffin. However, he did address the fact that sometimes he has to separate the casual friendship from the professional side of things.
“Obviously, there’s a Lane side for us where we’re buddies and friends, then there’s a professional side that I have to get on his ass a little sometimes.” He also added that he continues to hear from Kiffin all the time. The question he was responding to asked whether he had heard from the LSU head coach following, which was published in Vanity Fair. Golding responded, saying, “Lane hits me up every day, so I get twelve text messages a day from Lane. It’s what I decide to look at. So, I was not looking at that one. But no, we’re good.”
Clearly, despite what the fans may want, Golding and Kiffin’s friendship still exists today. And it doesn’t look like it’s in any danger of faltering anytime soon.”
Golding’s Response to Tampering Allegations
This has arguably been the biggest story of the offseason for Ole Miss football. And that is the allegation by Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney that the Rebels tampered with transfer linebacker Luke Ferrelli in his decision to flip from Clemson to Ole Miss. When asked for a response to the allegations, Golding had this to say, “Enforcement about a lot of these things is a real problem. I’m not going to sit up here and say whatever we did or we didn’t do, was it right or was it wrong? But, you know, when you go through what we went through (with tampering), and what you’re seeing day-in and day-out, some things you feel like shouldn’t matter that they’re making a big deal about.”
He then went on, adding, “It’s about the enforcement about it, that’s 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’t happened.”
Based on these comments, it sounds as if Golding is borderline acknowledging that yes, there was tampering going on. However, his complaint is obviously with the fact that it is well known that numerous other programs have done similar things, with no punishment or recourse.
Along those lines, he added, “Where we’re at in college football is not a really good place right now. A lot of things make headlines, and there’s a lot more people involved that everybody might not know at this point. Some things you feel shouldn’t matter that they’re making a big deal about, but I think it’s about the enforcement of it, and that’s 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’t been the case.”
Golding Names Names
To push his point home, he gave one direct example of what he was discussing: former Ole Miss linebacker TJ Dottery. Following an initial announcement saying he was returning to Oxford, Dottery ended up following Kiffin to LSU.
Golding had this to say about the situation. “That’s the piece where everybody’s at. There’s an enforcement of [Ferrelli]… but there’s not an enforcement of [Dottery], who was here for three years, and he’s been tampered with the entire time? What are we doing?”
It’s also known that Dottery wasn’t the only Rebel likely to have been tampered with, if we’re using a strict definition of the word. Princewill Umanmielen also left to head to LSU after it was announced that he was initially returning to Ole Miss. Running back Kewan Lacy and quarterback Trinidad Chambliss have both publicly acknowledged this offseason that they were approached by other schools, even though neither had entered the transfer portal. Both Lacy and Chambliss ultimately decided to stay at Ole Miss.
So while it sounds like Golding knows that he broke, or at least bent, the rules to land Ferrelli, he also doesn’t plan to sit idly by and be the only one punished for what is a rampant problem in college football. And yes, essentially daring the NCAA to punish you for transgressions may not be a wise decision, but it’s clearly not a situation that Golding seems to be losing a ton of sleep over.
Main Photo: Bruce Newman/Special to the Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
