Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin is known as one of the best play callers in college football. The 49-year-old helped bring Nick Saban‘s Alabama program into the spread world and has installed a spread-tempo offense at Ole Miss and has posted four consecutive top-20 offenses in ESPN’s SP+ rankings. The 2024 offense might be his best.

The Rebels have a high floor because of their offense. However, the ceiling has been raised in 2024 due to the other side of the football.

After spending five seasons as Saban’s defensive coordinator at Alabama, Pete Golding and the Tide decided to go in a different direction and that ultimately ended in the 40-year-old assistant landing at Ole Miss. In his first season, the Rebels posted a top-25 defense for the first time since 2015. Through four games in 2024, Golding’s second unit in Oxford looks like it might be top-10 caliber this fall. Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops is really impressed with the job Golding is doing.

“Pete is really good and really solid,” Stoops said. “You’re going to have to earn every yard you get against them.”

“They have length upfront and they have length in the secondary. They have length just across the board.”

The schedule has been soft out the gate but the Ole Miss defense sits in the top-10 nationally in multiple metrics.

• Havoc Rate: 19.2% (No. 2 overall)
• Success Rate: 30.1% (No. 3 overall)
• Yards Per Play: 3.50 (No. 4 overall)
• Points Per Drive: 0.73 (No. 4 overall)
• EPA/Play: -0.31 (No. 4 overall)

Through some high school recruiting and ton of transfer portal additions, Ole Miss has built a bonafide high-end SEC defense under Pete Golding. Stoops was very complimentary of Texas A&M defensive tackle Walter Nolen and the rest of the Ole Miss defense on Monday.

The talent, coaching, and scheme could make things difficult for Bush Hamdan’s offense on Saturday afternoon at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Kentucky will want to establish the run to open up the playbook but that is easier said than done.

“That’s who we are, right? That’s what we do best. That’s not going to fool them. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be very easy,” Stoops said when asked about establishing the run. “Again, I think Pete is absolutely one of the best defensive coordinators and they have really big, strong guys. They have some experience in the backend, they match things up really well.”

Most of pre-game talk this week will likely center around the heavyweight matchup between the Ole Miss offense and the Kentucky defense. However, Kentucky has a tough challenge on the other side of the ball dealing with an Ole Miss defense that has swallowed up every offense they’ve seen in 2024.

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