Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding has the perfect analogy for LSU and Lane Kiffin’s return to Oxford on Saturday
The Ole Miss Rebels are prepared to greet Lane Kiffin with a not-so-warm welcome as he makes his return to Oxford, but Rebels HC Pete Golding is doing his best to keep his team focused, explaining how, in a way only he can do.
Pete Golding continues to prove he is a national treasure on the microphone. With LSU heading to Oxford for what might be the biggest rivalry game the Ole Miss Rebels and the Tigers have ever played, the Rebels’ head coach dropped another gem that tells us how his team is approaching it.
Golding spoke about Lane Kiffin’s return to Oxford via The Next Round Live, saying “to me it’s like high school homecoming for these dudes. If you focus on the wrong s***, that homecoming dance ain’t very fun after you get your butt beat on Friday night.”
That line is clever, but it’s also the truth. Nobody wants to beat Lane Kiffin and the LSU Tigers more than Golding. He knows, though, that in order to pull it off given how well LSU has played over the last two weeks, his squad is going to need total focus. He’s going to need Trinidad Chambliss. He’s going to need Kewan Lacey. He’s going to need that defense locked in and 100% dialed into this game.
The pressure falls squarely on LSU
Kiffin made a number of comments Monday about the pressure being on Ole Miss. The truth is, that framing doesn’t hold up under any scrutiny. The pressure is on LSU. The pressure is on Lane Kiffin.
Sure, Ole Miss might return the best backfield the sport has seen in a long time. Sure, they might have two Heisman candidates in Lacy and Chambliss. Sure, the Rebels have the home-field advantage. But it’s Lane Kiffin who left Ole Miss, not the other way around. It’s Lane Kiffin who is bringing his newly built LSU Tigers into Oxford, believing they can contend for a national championship. Not the other way around.
For Golding, for the Ole Miss Rebels, for this entire football team, the pressure sits with LSU. The hatred is directed at LSU. The sense of victimization from all of this traces back to Kiffin and to the Tigers.
What the quote tells us about Ole Miss’s mindset
That quote from Golding tells us all we need to know about the mentality inside the Ole Miss program right now. The head coach and the football team understand what this game means, and they are approaching one of the most bitter matchups college football has ever seen with the right balance of intensity and discipline. Golding’s homecoming analogy captures it perfectly: get distracted by the spectacle and you’ll pay for it on the field.
