Will the Pete Golding era be more like Marcus Freeman or Zach Arnett?

The news is still incredibly fresh Pete Golding was named the next head coach at Ole Miss being elevated from his defensive coordinator role on Sunday.

Lane Kiffin’s messy departure caused the coaching carousel to spin a bit allowing a few potential candidates to find new homes before Ole Miss knew for certain its coach would be gone. Athletic director Keith Carter did what he thought best in promoting Golding immediately to bring consistency to the program with a College Football Playoff berth looming.

This is unprecedented in the sport as the 12-team playoff is still so new in relative history to college football, so there is not much history to glean from what is about to happen in Oxford. Can a coordinator step in and lead a tournament run with the top 12 programs in the country with success? Ole Miss with Pete Golding at the helm is about to find out.

But another narrative that quickly formed in the dark corners of college football rumor mills and chatter was if Golding was going to be like other coordinators who took over programs seemingly set up for success. Let’s look at one case being the insanely successful Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame and the other end of the spectrum with Zach Arnett at Mississippi State.

Is it insane to already start the speculation? Absolutely, but this is the damn SEC, and I can promise every coffee shop south of I-40 is at least broaching the topic this week.

Now, there’s the closer geographical example of Zach Arnett at Mississippi State who stepped in after the passing of Mike Leach a few years ago. The Bulldogs completed an 8-4 season and then won its bowl game with Arnett at the lead to finish the season ranked in the top 25. This marked the second straight winning season in Starkville, and the coaching staff in my opinion had the fanbase absolutely behind it given the emotional nature of all the change in leadership. Arnett had been the DC at MSU for three seasons under Leach and was a young and fiery guy who likely had the team’s buy in right away.

Arnett was fired with two games left in the regular season of his first year, however. He led the Bulldogs to a 4-6 record in 2023, which honestly isn’t terrible given all the circumstances. MSU ended up going 5-7 that season and have followed it up with a 2-10 season in 2024 and 5-7 season in 2025. Clearly, the rebuild is in full force, but I don’t think it all falls on Arnett. This is SEC football though, and his time as head coach is seen by many in maroon and white as a disaster.

Then there’s the more hopeful example of Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame. Yes, the Notre Dame that has won a shitload more games than almost any other program, and maybe it seems like a program destined not to fail. But it was not that long ago my friends the gold domes weren’t shining so bright. Charlie Weis’ stint was mediocre in his final three seasons going 16-21 from 2007-2009. Then came the resurgence under Brian Kelly who rode a bit of a rollercoaster at first but built the program back to national prominence over 12 years.

Kelly’s departure came on the heels of a top 10 finish, 11-2 season, and draws some very close resemblance to Ole Miss’ current situation as his destination was the armpit of America in Baton Rouge, La. coaching the LSU Tigers.

Notre Dame looked almost immediately at its new defensive coordinator Freeman to steady the ship. He was just shy of his 35th birthday but was coming in as one of the top coordinators in the country from a very successful stint at Cincinnati with Kelly. He had also turned down salvos from Ohio State, Michigan State and the Tennessee Titans to join their staffs at the end of the 2020 college season to join Kelly at Notre Dame.

Freeman was clearly the right choice as he has compiled a 43-12 record leading the Fighting Irish including national runners up last season. He was given the keys to a Ferrari at the time, and he didn’t just keep it on the road but blazed past his competition. Now the Irish are 10-2 and likely to make the CFP again.

So what will Golding’s future look like or resemble the most? His age and experience is similar to both these examples though his regional expertise with high school coaches and recruiting in my opinion dwarfs the other two because of his time at Alabama and Ole Miss already. I don’t think getting the players to Oxford will be the issue for the Hammond, La. native. His predecessor leaned more heavily into the transfer portal, and its well known at least within the program Golding has a big piece of the evaluation and strategy. There should not be a massive fall off there.

The big question already facing this newly minted staff is who from the former staff will stay and be all in with Golding’s leadership. We don’t know yet what this staff will look like 100 percent for 2026, and there’s time to sort all of that out.

Will there be a techtonic shift in terms of offensively philosophy? Or will he try to mimic what was already so successful for the Rebels the last six years?

I think in the interim for the playoffs things are going to be business as usual but maybe with a few wrinkles and innovations. Get a win, get some momentum and worry about the rest as it comes.

But the 2026 season will be one with every eye in the SEC watching closely to see how the Rebels hire, recruit and move forward. While there’s many expecting Arnett 2.0, the right choices and decisions could swing things in an entirely different direction.