Lane Kiffin’s return to his former team’s stomping grounds has everyone’s eyeballs glued to Saturday’s game between his No. 7-ranked LSU Tigers and the No. 8-ranked Ole Miss Rebels at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Miss.
Many expect animosity from the Ole Miss side to show up against Kiffin all game long, but Rebels head coach Pete Golding didn’t seem interested in participating in it, at least before the game.
Kiffin and Golding met on the field and exchanged pleasantries, even trying to play out a fake wrestling scenario just for the vibes.
Here is that moment between the two coaches.
All love before the game between Lane Kiffin and Pete Golding 🙌 pic.twitter.com/t3C7Cj5K6V
— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) September 19, 2026
Any notion that Golding had bad blood with Kiffin, who left Ole Miss to coach at LSU, didn’t show during that interaction. Golding is also perhaps just leaving the task of hating on Kiffin all night long to the Ole Miss fan base.
Before Kiffin left for LSU, Golding served as his defensive coordinator at Ole Miss, so Kiffin’s departure opened the door for Golding to become a head coach for an SEC program. That may be enough for Golding to snuff out the urge to completely despise Kiffin — but not the desire to defeat his former boss.
Ole Miss entered the LSU game after a 2-0 start to the 2026 season, and it’s the same case for Kiffin and the Tigers.
