When you think about the chess match that is SEC football, it’s impossible not to picture Nick Saban and Lane Kiffin on opposite sides of the board. Saban, the master tactician, built a dynasty at Alabama with relentless discipline and a defense-first mentality. Kiffin, once Saban’s offensive apprentice, took those lessons and added his brand of swagger and creativity, turning Ole Miss into one of the most unpredictable and entertaining programs in the league. That’s why, back in 2024, the defense for Ole Miss had been an intriguing study in perseverance and change. They conceded only a little more than 311 yards per game.
And at its helm is Pete Golding, the man holding this rejuvenated defense together. Golding arrived in Oxford as a proven tactical genius, and he hasn’t disappointed. Golding’s path to Ole Miss is a tale unto itself. He earned his stripes under Nick Saban at Alabama, where everything was about being a cog in the machine. Now with Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss, Golding’s got the best of both worlds. On the official coaches’ pod network show, Golding described how Saban’s Bama was all about the system. On the other hand, Kiffin’s Ole Miss is about the players, figuring out what each guy does well and letting him be him. “I think it was good for me,” Golding says.
“Because I think once you get to a certain point at Bama, you can fall into the trap, like this is the only way to do it, right? And there have been so many guys who have left there and tried to take that blueprint. But they’re not Coach Saban, right? And it’s not Tuscaloosa, and it’s not the history of the program, and it doesn’t work. And so I learned so much while I was there of how to manage people, right, and the discipline of a program and the recruiting aspect and all that.”
At Alabama, Golding says the experience was “very NFL”. You had to check all the boxes: height, weight, speed, block protection, and passion. If a player wouldn’t fit into the framework, he didn’t play. That was difficult for Golding, who’d honed his craft at smaller schools where you had to be inventive.
Saban’s scheme succeeds in Tuscaloosa because of the specific combination of tradition, resources, and Saban’s unrelenting discipline. When assistants depart and attempt to duplicate that same recipe elsewhere, it doesn’t work. Look at the long list of Saban’s former assistants who didn’t amount to much as head coaches. Like Jim McElwain at Florida or Jeremy Pruitt at Tennessee. They attempted to take the Alabama playbook with them, but without Saban and Alabama’s aura, it didn’t work.
Everything at Alabama is handled. From how you practice, how you recruit, and how you handle media. It became a pressure cooker, but it produced results. That’s why, when Golding relocated to Ole Miss, he didn’t merely replicate Saban’s system. Rather, he borrowed the best elements. The discipline, the accountability, and the recruiting ferocity, he mixed with his approach and Lane Kiffin’s more flexible method.
“It’s cool to go from that to Coach Kiffin to where you still have the discipline of the program. And meetings are run right, and the intensity of practice and recruiting is. And then there’s another side to it that you can still play music at practice and win games.”
Lane Kiffin’s tale is one of the most intriguing in college football, and it got going under his tenure as Alabama’s offensive coordinator with Nick Saban. Golding says, “But a lot of coach Kiffin’s core values come from coach Saban. Don’t get that twisted. So the part of the ball piece and the discipline and the self-discipline part and all that, that’s very Bama.” Saban hired Kiffin in 2014 to put some life into the Crimson Tide’s offense.
But as anyone who’s a college football fan knows, Kiffin’s not boring. Just before the 2017 National Championship, Kiffin resigned from Alabama to become the head coach at Florida Atlantic, and Steve Sarkisian became the play-caller for the title game. Pete Golding, who has lived in both Saban‘s and Kiffin‘s worlds, describes it best: you still have the discipline, the well-organized meetings, the hard-scrabble practices, and the recruiting machine he learned under at Alabama. But with Kiffin, there‘s a little bit of added fun and liberation that you simply don‘t have in Tuscaloosa.
Pete Golding’s crash course with Monte Kiffin
When you discuss defensive legends of football, the name Monte Kiffin rumbles through each meeting room and whiteboard session. He wasn’t just Lane Kiffin’s dad. He was the godfather of defense, the genius behind the legendary Tampa 2 scheme that revolutionized the NFL and left an impact on college football as well. For Pete Golding, filling the Ole Miss gig, Monte’s presence was inspiring and a touch intimidating. Golding, who came from the high-pressure world of Nick Saban’s Alabama, admitted that if he hadn’t just survived the Saban gauntlet, he probably would’ve been nervous around Monte.
After all, you’re talking about a guy who won a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers and built defenses that terrorized the league for a decade straight. When Monte came on board with Lane at Ole Miss as a defensive analyst, all that know-how came with him. Golding terms those first days as a crash course in defensive wizardry: “So, he was awesome when I first got there, [transitioning] into a new system. So we’re on the whiteboard every day, and just, the story times I’ve had with Monte were just unbelievable.”
Monte’s influence extended beyond schemes and chalk sessions. Even after he died in 2024, his presence remained in the program. Lane Kiffin pushed through the loss and propelled Ole Miss to a 10-3 year, narrowly missing the playoffs. To Golding, Monte’s guidance was a blessing. It had given him the confidence to break into a new system and the motivation to continue the work of one of football’s greatest innovators.
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