The University of Mississippi Athletics
Postgame Quotes vs. Florida
9/26/2026 | Football
OLE MISS HEAD COACH PETE GOLDING
Opening Statement:
"What an awesome environment. I thought [Jon] Sumrall and Buster [Faulkner] and all those guys had their guys ready to play. That was an old-fashioned butt whooping. I thought in all three phases, especially in the first half, we could not really get anything going. Especially on third down. Defensively losing leverage and having missed tackles. Explosive plays in the run game and pass game. Did not think we executed really well on special teams either. Kickoff was an issue all night in the return game and that started bad field position. We played a really good football team that is coached really well in a tough environment. You have to play better on all three phases and that starts at the top. We have to do a better job coaching them. Obviously, we did not do the things necessary, Monday through Friday, in order to play a really good football team. We are going to have a lot more of these. I told them after the LSU game, look, this is one game. This does not define your season. This is a what have you done for me lately business and it is no different tonight. The sun is going to come up tomorrow and we are going into a bye week, and we really have to evaluate.
The things we are doing well we have to continue to do well and we have a lot of issues in all three phases we have to address starting with coaching and playing in order to put a better product on tape because that was a butt whooping."
On the defense through four weeks:
"I think there are points in time that you have to make decisions and there are points in time where you have to say I am not okay with that. That is not okay. That starts at the top for us. When we put some things on tape that we have to clean up and we are going to continue to get exposed as long as they are on tape. I think it is a good time for the bye week for us to really evaluate how we are going to do it. The guys that are doing it are doing it consistently enough. We have some guys to look at to play better football. I told our group that I love our group. I think they are wired the right way. But right now it is not a good enough product and that starts with me."
On turning around the missed tackles:
"I hope so. I think with anything when you are not very good at it, you have to continue to work at it, so that is something we have emphasized every week. We have reset up how we drill it and structure it. We go live on Tuesdays versus the scout team but it continues to show up so we definitely have to evaluate that this week."
On what was different in the second half:
"That is kind of what I said at halftime. That is kind of as bad of a first half as you could have. Go for it on fourth down and don't get it. A couple things occur and then we go out in the second half and score on the first possession. We get it down to three points and at that point it is good, but we just could not get a stop on defense. We could never string them together. I thought our offense was moving the ball effectively in the second half. We just never really gave them a chance. Some of those games start happening when you lose leverage or start missing tackles. You probably get into some calls that you probably shouldn't and it's kind of feast or famine on some of things. A couple times I probably put our guys in all or nothing position, that became explosives trying to get back into this thing to get a stop, so we have to do a better job stopping the run. We knew coming into it, how many times could they hand it to 13 [Jadan Baugh]. You really have to look back and evaluate it.
Buster [Faulkner] did a great job, but it was nothing that we did not see on tape. He does a really good job window dressing his stuff and they did a really good job and we just did not get our players to execute and that just goes back to coaching, and I told our players we need to look in the mirror as well so we are all accountable to it."
On what has gone wrong with the defense after being bullish going into the year:
"I think tackling the guy with the ball is a real thing on defense. That's kind of important. I think, just right now, we just haven't got that good combination of stacking things. And what I mean by that, consecutive series. Consistency and execution is what this game's about to be an elite football team. At all three phases. And right now, we haven't been consistent on defense, whatever 11 guys are out there, whatever positions they're playing, up to this point. And so, that's our responsibility in the bye week to go out and try to get that done. Like I've said, there's still flashes of winning football on that side of the ball, but definitely wasn't a lot tonight."
On addressing the early miscues and penalties:
"Obviously, the thing at halftime that I addressed was we had a lot of guys trying to ankle bite, going diving at ankles and all those things. I addressed kind of the manhood at halftime a little bit. There was a lack of courage, in my opinion, at times, that we were picking and choosing. That's an elite back and he's a big back, and you've got to go chest-to-chest with him whether you like it or not. He's going to stiff arm you're going to be on the ground. His missed tackle rate was No. 1 in the NCAA. We watched every one of them. And we go through it, like look, here it is, you tackle different guys differently, and that's week-to-week. But that was a big emphasis this week, that obviously we did a poor job coaching because we couldn't get that done."
On whether he prefer the bye or would prefer to play again next week:
"No, I don't want them to get this taste out of their mouth. That's what I told them. Part of people's problem is, I never got the taste out of my mouth from Miami walking off the field. Part of the problem sometimes is we move on too fast. And so when I said the sun's going to come up tomorrow, the sun's going to come up tomorrow and it's a new day, but it's a new day to go get better at what we don't do well. And you better have that burning in your gut in order to go fix something. I think we have guys like that. We don't have enough guys like that right now. And that was kind of the challenge right there, we get to choose. That's the beautiful thing about this game. You get to choose whether you're going to go all in and do things right or not. And we get to choose who plays. And so, it's our responsibility through the week to hold them accountable and make sure we're doing the things. And we got to go find 11 guys in all three phases that are doing that. We got more guys than that are capable. And we got to make sure that we're making them do that Monday through Friday so we can have a better product on Saturday. We're in control of this and we get to decide, and so I think it is a great time for that, for them to sit on it for a little while and go watch the tape, like we do every week, and go clean this thing up, and then really focus on the things that we got to
improve to play winning football in this league. Because there's been times in all three phases that that's what it looks like. And that's an elite football team. That didn't get washed away tonight. That's still there. But again, you put something on tape that other people are going to try to take advantage of, that you got to go get it off the tape. That's what I'm excited about this week."
OLE MISS QB TRINIDAD CHAMBLISS
On Ole Miss' offense in the second half:
"We had a slow start in the first half offensively. I feel like that first half set the tone, went for it on fourth-and-one, playing aggressive. We feel confident in our offense, I know [John David Baker] does as well. So that definitely hurt, because I feel like we would've scored on that drive. But getting things going in the second half, but at that point it was just too late. Their offense is rolling. We couldn't get a stop, so credit to Florida."
On HC Pete Golding saying that he hopes this is one he hopes the teams sits on and if he concurs:
"No I don't. I mean this isn't going to define our season. We should feel, I guess, this type of way and feel what we're feeling right now. The things we could've executed on, the mistakes we had, the plays that we could've made. Let that all soak in throughout this whole week and we can really just try and like get over that. Fix a whole bunch of the things that we could have fixed and then just be better for our next game."
On how confident he is they will flip the switch:
"I'm super confident in our team. Florida, they were a good team. I feel like if we were playing our best ball, things might have been different, but that didn't happen today. But the confidence in my team has never changed. I still got the utmost confidence in my team. I feel like we can still compete for an SEC championship, in the National Championship, but now we just got to go another week and focus on one game at a time."
On what changes for him when RB Kewan Lacy does not play:
"Missing Kewan definitely hurts. He's a dynamic player. He puts a lot of pressure on defensive coordinators and you kind of got to scheme for him and me and our whole offense. But yeah, the drop off in our running back room, I don't think there's a big drop off, honestly. I love how JT [Lindsey] plays, I love how Makhi Frazier plays, I love how Josh Dye plays, too. They're all tough-nose running backs and when we need them, they show up, and I feel like they played really good today, so I'm proud of them."
On if the bye week is coming at a good time:
"I would say so. Now that was our fourth game, the second quarter of our season, officially started with this game. So you could say it's the right time. Coming off a loss, you definitely want to come with a win heading into the bye week. But like I just said, I feel like we should feel how we feel right now, embrace it, and just move on and just find a way to get better and not let this happen again."
OLE MISS LB KEATON THOMAS
On letting UF get 300 yards of rushing offense:
"Obviously, that's inexcusable. As the green dot, I put that solely on my back. Whether it was my mistake, or somebody else's, it's my defense. I am very proud for my defense, so it's just unacceptable. We got to fix that. So, we're going to watch the tape tomorrow, work at it at practice and then fix it this week when we got the time to work on it and then after that, get back to it."
On Ole Miss' defense:
"For us, the biggest thing is consistency. I think everybody's seen it. When we're hot, we're hot and when we're cold, we're cold, and we need to be swinging and hot from the start. To me, there shouldn't be any excuse from now on. We played four games; it's not anymore of dipping your toe in the water and checking the temperature. We need to dive in and dominate for four quarters."
On the team's response to being called out at halftime:
"Yeah, I think some guys took it, and other guys didn't, and I think that showed in the second half. I'm going to make it evident too, to call guys out and let them know that, if you don't want this, then you shouldn't have come here. This is the league where you're going to play against the best, week in and week out. I know I'm always excited about that, and I want everybody else to be as ecstatic about it as I am. This week it's going to be a chance for me to keep stepping up as a leader, getting guys on board to keep pushing and keep working and push past our limit."
On confidence in the team to bounce back:
"Very confident. This isn't the end of the year. This is one game and to be honest, we needed this. After last week, some guys might have thought that they have arrived. This is a very humbling game, but this is why it's the best sport in the world because you could be high one night and low the other night. When you get guys even keeled, not get too high, not get too low."
On not being able to build momentum:
"I talked to the media earlier this week about winning the middle eight. We played really good that last four minutes and then the first four minutes of the third quarter, we didn't. You have to win that middle eight, especially when a team is hot and they have a really good offense, a really good running back who can run the ball like that. You have to dominate that middle eight and we need to keep working on that."
On giving up two drives in the third quarter:
"I wouldn't say it's demoralizing, it's a part of the game, but we need to fix that. It's unacceptable, like I said before, we have to dominate the middle eight. We have to come out on fire in the third quarter, that's been our issue this season so far. We play somewhat of a decent first half, or a really good second quarter, we have to start really strong in the third quarter. We have to fix that."
