As Ole Miss prepares for its first-ever College Football Playoff matchup, Pete Golding is simultaneously building his inaugural staff as the team’s permanent head coach.
After posting two shark emojis on X, word quickly got out that two former Rebel staffers were making their way back to Oxford. First on the docket was Kelvin Bolden, who spent this past season as LSU’s senior associate athletics director and assistant general manager. Bolden departed from Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss staff after spending three years under the now-LSU frontman’s guidance before moving to Baton Rouge, but quickly bolted north when Kiffin was announced as the Tigers’ head coach.
During his initial stint at Ole Miss, Bolden helped the Rebels secure multiple top-20 high school recruiting classes. Bolden, an Ocean Springs native and former Southern Miss football standout, was especially influential in landing major homegrown players, including Suntarine Perkins (five-star linebacker from Raleigh), Caleb Cunningham (five-star wide receiver from Choctaw County), and Kam Franklin (four-star defensive lineman from Lake Cormorant), among others.
The second shark posted by Golding referred to Baker, who spent three years on the Ole Miss coaching staff from 2021-23, where he served as co-offensive coordinator and tight ends coach before taking over as East Carolina’s primary offensive play caller. Under Baker’s guidance, the Pirates’ offense thrived. In 2024, East Carolina was No. 24 in the nation in total yards, and rose to No. 13 overall during the 2025 campaign.
Baker’s hiring comes after Charlie Weis Jr. boarded a Baton Rouge-bound plane with Kiffin two Sundays ago, indicating that he intended to be LSU’s offensive coordinator. While Weis has been announced as the offensive playcaller for Ole Miss’s debut appearance in the College Football Playoff, his time with the Rebels will come to an end when the team’s time in the postseason concludes.
In the meantime, the Rebels will have some offensive staffers who are joining Kiffin at LSU during the playoff run. Notable staffers joining Weis in leading the team against Tulane, and potentially beyond, depending on the outcome of the first game, are wide receivers coach George McDonald and tight ends coach Joe Cox. Like Weis, McDonald, and Cox reportedly have agreements with LSU to be part of Kiffin’s staff next season.
Ole Miss will take on the Green Wave on Saturday, Dec. 20, at 2:30 p.m. CT. The matchup will air on TNT and participating SuperTalk Mississippi stations. If the Rebels win, they will advance to the quarter-finals and face Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.