Pete Golding meet Steve Fisher: Ex-Michigan basketball coach took over for magical postseason run

Pete Golding meet Steve Fisher: Ex-Michigan basketball coach took over for magical postseason run originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Because of Steve Fisher, the preposterous circumstance in which Ole Miss football coach Pete Golding finds himself cannot be described as unprecedented. Indeed, it is most unusual for a college coach to be so close to winning a national championship just a few weeks after being placed in charge of a major program, having run the team for just a few games, but the precedent for this commotion was established more than 35 years ago.

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Golding took over the Rebels when his former boss, Lane Kiffin, decided he’d rather work at LSU in the future than stick with the football team that lost just one game all season and was about to earn a No. 6 seed in the College Football Playoff.

Fisher was placed in command of the Michigan basketball program by athletic director Bo Schembechler on the morning of March 15, 1989, hours after he’d learned his former boss, Bill Frieder, had chosen to accept the position of Arizona State coach just days before he was to lead Glen Rice, Sean Higgins and Terry Mills into the NCAA Tournament as a No. 3 NCAA seed.

There was one massive difference in their situations, though.

“He’s writing the first chapter in the journey he knows he’s undertaking,” Fisher told The Sporting News. “I was auditioning to see if I could write a chapter. That was a big difference. He has the job. He’s for sure going to keep the job regardless. And I didn’t have a job, wasn’t going to keep it unless we won, won big. Which we did.”

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MORE 2026 COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF NEWS:

Golding was installed by athletic director Keith Carter as the new Ole Miss football coach – no “interim” descriptor necessary – on the same day it became official Kiffin was leaving for Baton Rouge. Golding was running the sideline for the Rebels three weeks…

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Publish date : 2026-01-08 11:10:00

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