Ahead of Cotton Bowl, Golding Isn’t Thinking About Head Coaching

With Alabama's biggest game of the season looming in the Cotton Bowl against Cincinnati on Friday, defensive coordinator Pete Golding is not thinking about any outside distractions, whether it be head coaching opportunities or his critics, of which there are many in Bama nation.

Now, if you only listened to the noise from Alabama fans for the past two years without actually looking deeper into the numbers and development of this defense, it would be hard to believe that Golding would be up for any kind of head coaching position. One person who has certainly not listened to the critics is Golding himself.

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The fact of the matter that Alabama fans and their ridiculous expectations need to understand is that the Crimson Tide have a top ten defense in the nation and have improved lightyears under Golding over the past two seasons. The days of winning championships in college football by shutting out every opponent or holding them to six points are gone, and both Golding and Nick Saban understand that.

They understand that in this changing landscape of college football, teams are going to score points, and the path to victory is blazed by limiting your opponent while scoring at an efficient rate on offense, and Alabama has put on a masterclass in adapting to this new style over the past half decade or so.

With all of this impressive improvement, Golding certainly could leave Alabama to go be a head coach if he wanted to be. But while Alabama fans would be quick to shuffle him out the door, it seems as if for now, Tuscaloosa is where Golding wants to stay.

One can't really blame Golding for wanting to continue to learn under the greatest coach in the history of college football. Is it possible that he is biding his time to potentially be the next head coach at Alabama once Saban finally decides to hang it up? Potentially, and staying and continuing to learn under Nick Saban is an excellent step in that direction.