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ATLANTA — One might think the transition from Alabama to Ole Miss, from a star-studded defense full of NFL talent to a transfer portal-fueled rebuilding effort, would have been uncomfortable for Pete Golding.

One would be wrong.

Instead, the move from Tuscaloosa to Oxford was very much in Golding’s comfort zone. Almost a year later, the Ole Miss defensive coordinator said diving into the Rebels’ program has been rejuvenating.

“This was kind of my niche, to be honest with you. Every job I’d ever taken was like this job. I got jobs because people were bad at what they did,” Golding said Wednesday during a press conference at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in downtown Atlanta, minutes before the Rebels practiced at Georgia Tech in preparation for Saturday’s Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl date versus Penn State.

Golding had rebuilt defenses at Tusculum, taking the Pioneers to the Division II playoffs for the first time in program history. He’d done it at his alma mater, Delta State, taking a 5-5 team the previous season to the national championship game the next season. He’d done it at Southeastern Louisiana, helping the Lions to consecutive conference championship games and a playoff appearance. Todd Monken was on the hot season when Golding arrived at Southern Miss in 2014. The Golden Eagles proceeded to win the Sun Belt West and make a bowl game. At UTSA, he was part of a new program and helped the Roadrunners to a bowl bid.

“Everywhere I’d been up to Alabama, they were here,” Golding said, intimating a low point with his hands. “How can I get them here? It was a constant build-up and getting the right pieces and you see their growth and development and all that.

“Alabama was a transition for me, where you’re already at the top of the mountain and it’s how can you maintain it? It isn’t your system. It isn’t your personality. It’s, ‘Hey, come learn the system. It’s Coach (Nick Saban’s) personality, as it should be. So that was different for me.

“Coming back to new personnel things, playing more people and rotating more guys and getting more buy-in was very refreshing.”

Ole Miss is 10-2 entering Saturday’s game versus Penn State (10-2). The Rebels went 6-2 in the Southeastern Conference, losing at Alabama and at Georgia. In the midst of a refreshing, rejuvenating season, that November night in Athens was eye-opening. Golding had been part of national championship teams in Tuscaloosa and he knows how difficult it is to get from good to great. Georgia just reminded Golding of that reality.

“To be honest with you, it was the first time this season that on the sidelines, when you looked at a player’s eyes, he wasn’t there. It was the first time I felt like the moment was too big.”

Golding had told Kiffin earlier in the season that the Rebels had enough grit and toughness on defense to where, assuming they could create some turnovers, a lot of games would be winnable.

“That was the first game that we really didn’t have it,” Golding said. “And it was from Snap One to the last snap.”

Golding wondered afterwards if part of the problem was the outside noise, the College Football Playoff talk that led into that night in Athens. Was it just a series of distractions?

Then he looked at the tape of that 52-17 loss.

“You looked at the point of attack and you looked at certain matchups,” Golding said. “Nothing against our guys but we were out-matched in certain places. When you have to beat those guys or beat ‘Bama to win this conference, you have to get comparable guys. …It definitely opened everybody’s eyes.”

So Ole Miss, even as it prepared for the Peach Bowl, dove into the transfer portal. Since the portal opened Dec. 4, Ole Miss has landed commitments from linebacker Christopher Paul Jr. (Arkansas), defensive backs Tamarion McDonald (Tennessee), Key Lawrence (Oklahoma), Louis Moore (Indiana), Tahveon Nicholson (Illinois) and Decamerion Richardson (Mississippi State), defensive linemen Walter Nolen (Texas A&M) Princely Umanmielen (Florida) and Tyler Baron (Tennessee), offensive lineman Gerquan Scott (Southern Miss) and wide receiver Juice Wells (South Carolina).

The emphasis, Golding said, was being more dominant on the front-seven and having the ability to play more man coverage on the back end. The selling point was keeping things real and making it fun.

“When they come to a place and they feel the love from the players and the staff, it’s still a place where they can improve and increase their value,” Golding said. “The Grove Collective does an unbelievable job of being able to take care of these guys and at least make it equivalent to other people. I think when put that into one and it’s the second time they’ve done it — the first time they might have done it for the wrong reason — and now they want it for the right reason while still being able to improve and compete for a championship, I don’t think there are a lot of those opportunities out there.

Last January, when Golding took the Ole Miss job, the SEC-to-SEC portion of the portal had already closed. So Golding was left to assemble a defense from all over the country. This December, when the portal opened, Golding was able to utilize his litany of contacts in the Southeast.

Many of the top defensive players in the portal were guys he’d recruited at Alabama. Maybe he and the Tide didn’t win all those recruiting battles, but he knew them.

“There was an initial relationship there,” Golding said.

Golding said the focus wasn’t necessarily SEC-specific, but getting players who have played in SEC stadiums and dealt with SEC distractions was a major plus.

“Getting a player who has been to Georgia, who has been to Bryant-Denny, who has played in a New Year’s Six bowl, who’s had the expectations, had the media attention, it’s a lot easier when you get them,” Golding said. “Even the way you travel and the media and Twitter and getting attacked and all of the things that come with it, when you’re in smaller places, that doesn’t happen.”

Golding said Wednesday the timing at Ole Miss is right. The right people are in place, he said.

“I think it starts to snowball,” Golding said. “Good players want to play with good players. The guys coming back help. You have to have a good quarterback in this league and obviously if Jaxson (Dart) decides to come back, that’s a big piece of the puzzle, even for defensive players. A lot of these defensive players played good defense. The quarterback sucked where they’re at and they’re 6-6.”

Thanks to Kiffin, Dart, Golding and The Grove Collective, Ole Miss is now a featured game on future schedules. He got a reminder of that on Christmas Eve when he saw grown men hitting the refresh button on X/Twitter after Golding tweeted out a shark emoji hinting about Nolen’s impending announcement.

“Once you’ve been at ‘Bama, nothing’s surprising,” Golding said, laughing. “They call them fans for a reason. They’re fanatic. It’s awesome. Coach Kiff has brought a product they’re excited about. We want to continue to build on that. With that comes expectations.”

Of course, that can wait. For this week, Golding is enjoying seeing his players get ready for a New Year’s Six bowl game and enjoying the spoils of their year’s-worth of work.

“I think when you’re doing things for the first time, there’s more buy-in,” Golding said. “You have to have the right type of guys on the team and the right character and it has to be player-led. Most of the good teams that I’ve been around, that were championship-level teams, were player-led teams.”