College Football Playoff Semifinal - Vrbo Fiesta Bowl: Miami v Ole Miss
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Hats off to Pete Golding, who opened his Ole Miss tenure with back-to-back wins and held a fourth-quarter lead over Miami in the College Football Playoff semifinals. He came up just shy of a trip to the national championship game, though, with a heartbreaking 31-27 Fiesta Bowl loss to the Hurricanes.

It was a devastating defeat for a program that was on a mission to prove itself following Lane Kiffin's departure for LSU. Miami quarterback Carson Beck scampered across the goal line for a late go-ahead touchdown run, and although the Rebels had one shot at the end zone as time expired, Beck's score came with too little time for Ole Miss to overcome it.

The Rebels played with fire over their final two games of the season, and they got burned in the Fiesta Bowl. One week after surrendering 34 points to Georgia, the Ole Miss defense gave up 31 to the Hurricanes and could not deliver a critical stop in the final minute.

Among Golding's offseason tasks will be to bolster a defensive unit that just last year stood with the nation's elites. He is a proven former defensive coordinator and may well be up to the task of rebuilding that group in short order. After all, he worked over the last three years for the "Portal King" and ought to have some transfer portal magic up his own sleeve.

If the college football world learned one thing about Ole Miss over the last few weeks, it is that this program, as currently constructed, is built to sustain through adversity. More is on the way with the inevitable roster upheaval that will occur with players following Kiffin to LSU, transferring to other schools and departing for the NFL Draft. Golding was capable of weathering one storm, but can he guide the ship through another?

Quarterback room in question

The NCAA denied Ole Miss star quarterback Trinidad Chambliss' waiver request for a sixth season of eligibility on Friday, less than 24 hours after the Rebels' Fiesta Bowl loss to Miami. However, that likely won't be the end of the program's push to get him in uniform for 2026. Just like Vanderbilt and Diego Pavia used the court system to get Pavia eligible for 2025, Ole Miss could do the same with Chambliss.

Chambliss is a Division II transfer who played four seasons at Ferris State, and his argument exists on the grounds that Division I redshirt rules differ from those of Division II. The eighth-place finisher in Heisman Trophy voting argues that he should receive a retroactive redshirt for the 2022 season because he played in just two games that year. DI permits players to redshirt once -- so long as they play in no more than four regular-season games.

But it would be unwise for the Rebels to put all their eggs in the Chambliss basket, and all indications are that Golding and Ole Miss have been working on contingency plans. With Austin Simmons transferring to Missouri after losing the starting job to Chambliss early in 2025, look for the Rebels to make a push for a transfer QB. Among the names to know is Auburn transfer Deuce Knight, a Mississippi native and former four-star prospect who looked good in limited action during a redshirt season with the Tigers in 2025.

Lane Kiffin reacts to Ole Miss' loss to Miami, harps on controversial ending in CFP semifinals
Brad Crawford
Lane Kiffin reacts to Ole Miss' loss to Miami, harps on controversial ending in CFP semifinals

Pete Golding tasked with offensive changes

Kiffin took six assistant coaches with him to LSU, but Golding kept most of the defensive staff intact and is expected to retain his own defensive play-calling duties in 2026. As an internal hire himself, he had the benefit of overseeing at least some continuity in his first few days as head coach. He's also added former Arizona Cardinals defensive backs coach Patrick Toney as co-defensive coordinator,

That some of the LSU-bound assistants remained on staff for the CFP run added a unique wrinkle and an element of turmoil, but with that now in the past, Golding's primary focus can turn to building out his own program. With 2025 offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. moving on to LSU and Chambliss' waiver denied, the Ole Miss offense will undergo significant change. John David Baker is coming over from East Carolina to the be the offensive coordinator after previously working as an assistant and co-OC under Kiffin from 2021-23. Running backs coach Frank Wilson is coming from LSU, and the Rebels have begun rounding out the rest of their offensive staff.

Golding will have to determine how involved he wants to be in those offensive changes. Will he turn the keys over to Baker, a promising but relatively inexperienced 35-year old play caller? Or will Golding seek to exert his influence on that side of the football as well? The shift from an offensive-minded head coach in Kiffin to a defensive mind in Golding will be significant, and it will be interesting to see what stylistic changes manifest as a result.

Are the Rebels' new expectations sustainable?

Ole Miss raised its own bar during the Kiffin era, wherein 10-win seasons became the norm after being few and far between for the vast majority of the program's history. The Rebels won 13 games this season for the first time ever, made their CFP debut, climbed into the top 10 of the AP Top 25 for the fifth straight season and were just two wins away from a national championship. That is an unprecedented amount of success.

Every time a coach not named John Vaught posted a double-digit win total at Ole Miss, a period of mediocrity ensued shortly thereafter. Golding has a longstanding trend to buck. He is off to a strong start having beaten a pair of playoff teams and severely threatening another, but he did so with Kiffin's players and a staff that he, for the most part, did not hire. Can he repeat these achievements as the face of the program?

It would be one thing for Golding to prevent the floor from falling out from underneath the Rebels. To keep this program in SEC and national title contention is a completely different question and one that, frankly, only time will answer. But things certainly aren't getting any easier in the SEC as the league moves to a 9-game schedule starting in 2026.