By Billy Watkins
Because I was born several decades ago, I can remember when Ole Miss rarely lost a football game. The Rebels were one of the most talked-about teams in the country during the late 1950’s and early 60’s.
When two-sport star Jake Gibbs arrived at the New York Yankees’ spring training site in 1961, he was greeted by legendary catcher Yogi Berra. “We’ve been waiting for you to get here,” he said to Gibbs.
Berra had never seen Gibbs hit or field a baseball, but he knew Gibbs had played quarterback for the Ole Miss Rebels. And that meant something in the national sports world in those days.
Here we are, 64 years later and just one week before Christmas, and Ole Miss has a football game to play in Oxford. A game of national importance.
The Rebels will serve as host to Tulane in the opening round of the 12-team College Football Playoffs at 2:30 Saturday afternoon. Media members from across the nation have created an overflow for work space. That’s a good problem for Ole Miss to have.
After all these years, the Rebels’ have once again earned a seat at the table of college football’s top programs — and not just because of this year.
From 2021 through 2025, only two teams have won more SEC games than Ole Miss (28). Georgia leads with 38, five more than Alabama.
The teams closest to the Rebels are Tennessee (24), LSU (23) and Texas A&M (22). Ole Miss has won twice as many league games during that period as Florida and Auburn.
And Ole Miss didn’t grab one of the final spots in this year’s playoff field. It earned the No. 6 seed.
Yes, the revival occurred with Lane Kiffin as head coach, and he must be credited with turning around a program that had just endured probation, scholarship cuts and a lot of losses.
Everyone knows Kiffin is now head coach at LSU. Everyone knows he deserted these players after the end of an 11-1 regular season and playoff games ahead. Everyone knows he was secretly talking deals with Florida and LSU while he was asking the players to be all-in.
Finally, the players had enough of his drama. Two days after winning the Egg Bowl, everything came to a head. When Kiffin wanted to sign a contract with LSU and coach Ole Miss in the playoffs, the 15-player Leadership Council told him “no way” to his face. Athletic director Keith Carter had told him the same thing for weeks.
A few members of the 2025 offensive staff — who will join Kiffin at LSU after Ole Miss’ final playoff game — will coach in the playoffs. The players made that request to Carter, who agreed it would be best. Those coaches wanted to do so. And the most important of the bunch was offensive coordinator Charlie Weis, Jr., who went with Kiffin to LSU but had extremely mixed emotions.
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It looks like Pete Golding got a haircut and trimmed his beard during the past few days. After all, how many guys get to debut as head coach in a playoff game?
Carter wasted little time promoting Golding, 41, from defensive coordinator to head of the program. The playoffs are not new to Golding, having served five years under Nick Saban at Alabama. And it was inevitable that Golding, known as one of the sharpest defensive minds in college football and a natural recruiter, was going to be a head coach at some point.
One act from Golding immediately helped me realize something that I can’t believe I didn’t see before: Lane Kiffin, for all the wins he brought to the school, was smothering the program with his ego. He made everything about him.
Golding, on the other hand, canceled a press conference right after being promoted because he wanted the focus on the players.
“Those are the guys who went 11-1,” he said at one of his press briefings.
Kiffin, on the other hand, sought the spotlight, enjoyed its glow, and would not share it — even with his players.
Quarterback Trinidad Chambliss’ numbers were good enough to earn a finalist spot in this year’s Heisman Trophy voting. But unless I missed it, I never heard Kiffin mention that Chambliss should be considered for the Heisman Trophy, never asked the voters to take a hard look at him. He would only say that Chambliss’s journey from a tiny Division II school to starting and thriving in the SEC was “a cool story.”
A nudge from Kiffin, who loves social media, could have gone a long way with voters. Chambliss finished eighth without his coach’s help.
Golding is all about the players, guys like senior transfer safety Wydett Williams, Jr. from Lake Providence, La.. He started out at Division II Delta State, where Golding played and coached.
Pro Football & Sports Network recently rated Williams “the best safety the SEC has seen in some time.”
Williams led the team with three interceptions and ranked third in tackles (55). His picks came against LSU, South Carolina and Florida.
“We were basically the only one recruiting him out of high school,” Delta State head coach Todd Cooley told me this week. “He had played quarterback, but we saw him as a defensive back. You could tell he was really athletic.
“We visited him in his home. He had the right attitude about changing positions. He had a great support group, great family, very disciplined.”
His dad is sheriff of East Carroll Parish (La.) and his mom, Rene, is the Clerk of Court in East Carroll.
Golding will promote players such as Williams every chance he gets.
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Ole Miss fans will gather Saturday, most likely in record numbers, to see their team compete in the playoffs.
It isn’t a dream anymore. It isn’t wishing or hoping. It will happen on 100 yards of Mississippi grass for the entire nation to see.
Vaught-Hemingway Stadium will be loud, and it will get louder as an afternoon game morphs into one under the lights.
I don’t expect this game to be easy for the home team, even though the Rebels beat Tulane early this season 45-10 in Oxford.
But shouldthe game end as Las Vegas oddsmakers believe it will, Ole Miss will advance to the second round — a Sugar Bowl date with Georgia on Jan. 1.
Should Ole Miss win, players and fans will experience a certain degree of closure on the whole Kiffin saga. No, not completely. Not even close. But some.
And should Ole Miss win, it will count for something when one can say that the most recent head coach to lead the Rebel football team to victory was Pete Golding.
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