Pete Golding clarifies Ole Miss NIL director's claim that school hired FBI to sweep team facility for bugs after Lane Kiffin's departure for LSU

The director of the Ole Miss NIL collective recently painted a picture of security at football facilities in the aftermath of Lane Kiffin’s departure that sounded like something out of a spy thriller.

On Monday, head coach Pete Golding offered a more nuanced explanation of Ole Miss football’s security protocol.

With his team preparing for its September 6 season opener against Louisville, Golding was asked about a claim that Ole Miss had hired the FBI to sweep team facilities for bugs following Kiffin’s acrimonious departure as head coach last season.

The question was in response to comments from Walker Jones, the executive director of the Grove Collective, Mississippi’s independent NIL arm. Jones told the “Assorted Crackers” podcast in an interview published Thursday that Ole Miss hired the FBI to sweep team facilities for bugs that Kiffin was feared to have planted on his way out.

“We actually had the FBI come through and walk the building for bugs and for everything," Jones said. “We knew kind of what was in Baton Rouge, and we knew how they operated.

“I remember getting on my knees and looking underneath the desk, like checking for, like, 'Is there some sort of bug in my office?' Somebody was like ‘What are you doing?’ I was like, ‘Trust me, you don't know this guy like I do.’”

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Golding said this on Monday when asked about the supposed bug sweep that was said to have happened after Kiffin left Ole Miss for LSU in December.

“Any bowl game, playoff system, obviously, you’re going to up security, “ Golding told reporters at his Monday news conference. “I’m not sure that there was a hiring process of ‘Here we go with the FBI.’ I do think that we probably have a current player whose dad just so happens to work for the FBI that lives in town, from that standpoint.

“There was no measure to go, ‘oh my gosh, here come in,’ from that standpoint. Obviously, any time you get in that playoff system and you have guys from this building go to other places, you want to make sure it’s secure for your players.”

Golding reiterated that any security measures Ole Miss took fell under the umbrella of standard protocol.

“That’s no different when in the semis and the quarters, regardless of where you’re at, for the hotels that you’re staying in,” Golding continued. “You’ve got to up the security, people are in and out, and you’re sweeping trash cans.

“That’s been done for the history of ball. So, no, there was no hiring process of, ‘Hey let’s get the FBI in here, holy cow,’ and they start looking around. Nah, it wasn’t anything like that.”

So much for the spy thriller storyline.

Kiffin left abruptly late last season to take the head coaching job at rival LSU and took several Ole Miss staffers with him. He left on bad terms, with Ole Miss on the verge of a CFP run with a chance to win a national championship.

The Grove Collective is a third-party arm that runs the programs’ NIL initiatives. Jones doesn’t work for Ole Miss or speak for the program in an official capacity. But he clearly feels spurned by Kiffin, as do many in Oxford.

Golding worked as Kiffin’s defensive coordinator before taking over as head ahead of the program’s three-game CFP run to the semifinals last December. His version of the story isn’t nearly as exciting as Jones’.

As for Kiffin? As of Monday, he had not addressed the claim.