It looks as though quarterback Trinidad Chambliss will get to play one more year at Ole Miss. Part of us wants to shout hooray.
Chambliss is a great story, a lower-division star who transferred to Ole Miss in 2025, expecting to be the backup quarterback but, following an injury to the player ahead of him on the depth chart, emerged as a national sensation, leading the Rebels to their winningest season in program history, including two wins in the College Football playoffs.
An extra year in Oxford has Rebel fans dreaming of another deep playoff run with the popular and talented Chambliss at the helm of the offense. Chambliss himself could start the season as a leading contender for the Heisman Trophy, awarded annually to the best player in college football.
But the other part of us wonders whether there was some “home cookin’” involved in the state judge’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction that prevents the NCAA from enforcing its determination that Chambliss had used up his college eligibility.
Chambliss claimed that he was due a sixth year because of health problems he experienced during his second season at Ferris State, where he spent four years before transferring to Ole Miss. He did not play in his first year at the Michigan school because he was given a traditional redshirt by the team. The second year he did not play either – for reasons that have been in dispute.
Chambliss and his attorneys claimed it was because of a bad case of tonsilitis that also caused respiratory and sleep problems. When the NCAA investigated, however, to see whether a retrospective medical redshirt was in order, it said there was insufficient documentation to back up Chambliss’ claim that he was incapacitated during that 2022-2023 season. In truth, the NCAA found evidence to the contrary. Chambliss practiced the whole season and did not miss class time. He did not have surgery for his medical condition until two years later. And Ferris State, though it later waffled, told the NCAA that the reason Chambliss did not play during his second year there was because of “developmental needs and our team’s competitive circumstances” -- translated, at that point in Chambliss’ college career, there were better players ahead of him.
Had this case been heard anywhere else than Mississippi, by a judge who didn’t have any connections to Ole Miss and didn’t have to worry about staying on the good side of its politically powerful alumni, one wonders whether the decision would have gone differently.
Lafayette County Chancery Judge Robert Whitwell concurred that Chambliss would be irreparably harmed if the NCAA’s refusal to give the quarterback an extra year stuck. That much is true. In this era of millionaire college players, Chambliss stands to make about twice as much at Ole Miss next season than if he had entered the NFL draft.
The decision, though, also creates its own harm. It will encourage more players to go to state courts, where the venues might be friendly, to get extra years of eligibility. In the process, those who are lower in the pecking order will see their playing time and their earnings diminish.
Deuce Knight, a highly touted backup quarterback at Auburn, transferred in January to Ole Miss apparently on the expectation that Chambliss would not be successful in his appeal. That would have made Knight the early favorite to be the starting quarterback next season. Unless Chambliss gets hurt, Knight is now likely to again ride the bench. Nor can he transfer to another school easily at this point.
He can hope that the NCAA appeals Whitwell’s decision. But that would go to a state Supreme Court on which all but one of the current justices have an undergraduate or law degree or both from Ole Miss. Not exactly an impartial body when it comes to the Rebels.
