O’Gara: Making the case for Pete Golding to be the 2024 Broyles Award winner

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, they say.

Pete Golding was not trash during his time at Alabama as Nick Saban’s defensive coordinator. Was he treasure? Probably not according to the Alabama standard. In the 10 years before Golding arrived in Tuscaloosa (2008-17), the Tide had only posted top-8 scoring defenses. In Golding’s 5 years at Alabama (2018-22), the Tide never finished outside the top 20, but he also never posted a top-8 scoring defense.

Ergo, Golding became an easy target. After all, he was the short, curly-haired 30-something with no Power 5 experience before Saban surprisingly hired him to replace the well-traveled Jeremy Pruitt after Tennessee hired him. When Alabama had treasure performances, it was easier to credit the greatest coach of all time for his defensive game plan than it was to credit Golding, AKA the primary defensive play-caller.

Lane Kiffin’s time on Alabama’s staff never coincided with Golding’s. The Ole Miss coach watched from afar, and he saw Golding’s defense at work against his offense on 3 different occasions with varying results. After a disastrous first head-t0-head showing in 2020, Golding’s defense held Kiffin’s offense to 4.6 yards/play in 2021 and it got a key defensive stop late in Oxford to end Ole Miss’ Playoff bid in 2022.

When Kiffin decided he needed to hire a 3rd defensive coordinator ahead of Year 4, Golding was the target that he had to land. Maybe Kiffin sold Golding on the fact that his wife’s family was from Mississippi or that at a place like Ole Miss, he could have total autonomy on defense in ways that he didn’t at Alabama, where Golding was reportedly offered a raise to stay but declined (H/T FootballScoop). “That signing is as 5-star as you can get,” Kiffin said in February 2023 after hiring Golding as his top assistant.

Fast forward to this past Saturday. Georgia scored 1 touchdown — it was a 21-yard drive — and Ole Miss’ defense was the driving force behind a 28-10 beatdown for Kiffin’s highest-ranked win of his career. More important, a Playoff dream that was nearly trashed before November now has life.

It’s safe to say Golding has turned into a treasure in Oxford. He might just be worthy of the Broyles Award as the best assistant in college football.

If the voting were decided today, Golding would have a darn good case.

Sure, Kiffin, AKA “The Portal King,” and The Grove Collective deserve a ton of credit for flipping the 52-17 Georgia result in a year. Adding big-time SEC defensive transfers like Walter Nolen, Princely Umanmielen, Trey Amos and Chris Paul Jr. was at the root of handing Georgia its first loss to a non-Alabama team in 4 years. Entering the day, 9 of Ole Miss’ top 19 tacklers weren’t on the team in 2023.

But Golding deserves credit for helping to recruit those established players and more importantly, making them fit in his scheme. That’s not an easy thing to do when players are essentially coming on board as coveted free agents, not as desperate veterans who are seeking a path to playing time. It wasn’t a given that Golding would succeed in that, especially when Ole Miss operates an up-tempo offense that doesn’t always lend itself to complementary football. It was entirely different from the Alabama developmental process. Golding signed up for that.

Kiffin signed up for defensive numbers like this:

• No. 1 in FBS in sacks
• No. 1 in FBS in tackles for loss
• No. 1 in FBS in rushing yards/carry allowed
• No. 2 in FBS in rushing yards/game allowed
• T-No. 5 in FBS in opposing 20-yard runs allowed
• No. 6 in FBS in scoring defense
• No. 6 in FBS in yards/play allowed
• No. 8 in FBS in opposing red-zone conversion percentage
• No. 11 in FBS in fumbles forced
• No. 14 in FBS in turnovers forced
• No. 16 in FBS in opposing 3rd down conversion percentage

Of all the things Ole Miss does well, the way it gets into the backfield is the standout trait. That group has 18 more TFLs than any team in America, and it already has 21 more TFLs than any defense in the previous 4 years under Kiffin. Mind you, that’s through just 10 games. All signs point to Golding’s unit, which averaged a ridiculous 10 TFLs in SEC play, continuing that for the rest of 2024.

That group already battled injuries to edge-rushers Jared Ivey and Princely Umanmielen. That prompted an increased role and a breakout season for sophomore Suntarine Perkins, who is now tied for the SEC lead with 13.5 TFLs as the rare homegrown product. Well, defensive tackle/wildcat QB extraordinaire JJ Pegues is sort of the ultimate homegrown product having grown up in Oxford, though he spent the first 2 years of his college career at Auburn before returning to the place where he became a prep football unicorn.

Those 4 guys, as well as Paul, who has been as advertised after coming from Arkansas in the post-2023 transfer portal window, are all ranked among the SEC’s top 9 in tackles for loss. The last time that 5 SEC players from the same team finished in the top 10 in the conference in TFLs was … never. At least not since the conference began officially tracking that stat in 2005 (it was tracked nationally before but the NCAA archives only list the top 35 players in TFLs).

This is unique. It’s especially unique to see what Golding is doing at Ole Miss, which did the inverse of what he was criticized for at Alabama. In the 7 years before Golding’s arrival (2016-22), Ole Miss never finished in the top 40 in scoring defense. In his 2 years in Oxford, Ole Miss has 2 top-40 scoring defenses. Or rather, he’s closing in on doing that for the second consecutive time. Barring an epic collapse, Ole Miss will have a top-20 scoring defense — it would be incredibly ironic if Golding’s defense finished No. 8 in FBS in scoring — for the first time in a decade, which would be quite the feat for a group that was No. 100 or worse 4 times from 2016-20.

Yes, the Broyles Award is an individual season honor, but historical context is relevant. It’s relevant that Kiffin had one of those aforementioned bottom-feeder defenses in his first season, and his team lost 3 games in which it hit 35 points. Under Golding, Ole Miss is 18-1 when it scores 21 points, and the lone loss came in overtime at LSU (at night). As in, a game in which LSU had 1 touchdown in the first 59 minutes and 30 seconds.

If you would’ve told 2022 Kiffin that all he’d need to do was score 21 points and his team would be a legitimate Playoff contender, he would’ve written Golding a blank check (The Clarion Ledger reported that he started at $1.9 million in 2023 and got a raise to earn $2.15 million in 2024 with $100,000 increases through the remainder of the contract in 2026).

It’s a remarkable turnaround in terms of identity, to say the least. If Ole Miss can avoid letdowns against Florida and Mississippi State, all signs point to the defense fueling the program’s first Playoff berth. Perhaps it can even get to Atlanta and play for an SEC Championship for the first time.

Checking both boxes would make Golding the frontrunner for the award as the top assistant in the sport. Lord knows there’ll be plenty of worthy Broyles Award candidates like Tennessee DC Tim Banks, Indiana OC Mike Shanahan, Texas DC Pete Kwiatkowski, Miami OC Shannon Dawson, Colorado DC Robert Livingston and Army DC Nate Woody, just to name a few. They’re all worthy.

But Golding’s ability to dial up pressure and befuddle offenses looks like the unquestioned strength of a potential Playoff berth. There won’t be a long list of assistants with full autonomy of a unit who can claim that. Golding set himself up to be in that rare group. No matter how 2024 turns out, he’s done his part to elevate Kiffin’s legacy.

In Oxford, Golding should be treasured forever.

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.