Trinidad Chambliss’s College Career Ends as NCAA Denies His Eligibility Request

Less than 24 hours after Ole Miss’s season ended in the CFP semifinals, its quarterback, Trinidad Chambliss, learned his NCAA career was ending as well.

Trinidad Chambliss of the Ole Miss Rebels looks on during warmups prior to the game against the Miami Hurricanes during the 2025 College Football Playoff Semifinal at the VRBO Fiesta Bowl at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Jan. 8, 2026. Norm Hall/Getty Images

The past 24 hours couldn’t have gone much worse for any single college football player than it has for Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss.

A breakout star in this college football season, Chambliss and the Rebels played valiantly in the College Football Playoff semifinal matchup against the Miami Hurricanes before losing. The last play of the game saw Chambliss attempting a potential go-ahead touchdown pass as the clock expired, and it involved a controversial no-call on a possible pass interference.

That led to Ole Miss losing 31–27 and Chambliss walking off the field in tears. The tears, undoubtedly, came from coming so close to a national championship but falling short. However, Chambliss may have shed some more tears less than 24 hours later when on Friday, the NCAA denied his waiver petition for another year of college eligibility. Chambliss was seeking to play a sixth college football season in 2026, but it turns out that him walking off the field at the Fiesta Bowl on Thursday was the last time he’ll walk off the field as a college football player.

The NCAA released a statement in which it explained why it denied the waiver request from Ole Miss, which was filed in November. Chambliss’s petition for an extra year stems from him not playing in the 2022 season while at his previous school of Ferris State due to medical reasons. However, the statement said, in part, that there was no documentation from Ferris State that the quarterback had an injury or illness that incapacitated him and prevented him from taking the field.

“The documents provided by Ole Miss and the student’s prior school include a physician’s note from a December 2022 visit, which stated the student-athlete was ‘doing very well’ since he was seen in August 2022,” the NCAA statement said. “Additionally, the student-athlete’s prior school indicated it had no documentation on medical treatment, injury reports or medical conditions involving the student-athlete during that time frame and cited ‘developmental needs and our team’s competitive circumstances’ as its reason the student-athlete did not play in the 2022-23 season. The waiver request was denied.”

Chambliss is from the high school class of 2021, and he enrolled at Division II, Ferris State, which is in his native Michigan, that year. He took a redshirt in the 2021 season, with the following year the season at the heart of the waiver request. Chambliss didn’t play in either 2021 or 2022 while at Ferris, before serving as a backup in 2023 and then the team’s starter in 2024.

He then transferred to Ole Miss for the 2025 college football season, which was his fifth as a college student but only his third with any game time. He and Ole Miss were hoping to tack on another year, but the NCAA ruled that the 2022 season in dispute started his four-year clock of playing, and the 2025 season ended that clock.

Chambliss was one of the breakout stars of this college football season as he led Ole Miss to its best season in the 120-year history of the program. He led all SEC players with 3,937 passing yards, while also having a scintillating 22–3 touchdown-to-interception ratio. Chambliss, who began the year as a backup, also rushed for 527 yards and 8 touchdowns as he led the SEC in total yards as well. For his efforts, he finished eighth in Heisman voting—and second among SEC players—despite not starting the first two games of the season.

He led Ole Miss to a 13–2 record, breaking the program’s previous record of 11 wins, as well as its first appearance in the College Football Playoff. Chambliss—who won two Division II national championships at Ferris State, one as a backup in 2022 and another as a starter in 2024—finishes his NCAA playoffs career with a 6–1 record, 24 total touchdowns, and just one turnover.

There was speculation that if Chambliss was granted a sixth year of eligibility that he would follow former Ole Miss coach, and now LSU HC, Lane Kiffin, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. However, three days before the CFP semifinal versus Miami, Chambliss posted on social media that “while the process is still ongoing, there is no place I would rather be than finishing my college career in Oxford.” Nonetheless, that process didn’t end up in his favor, and now he’s off to the NFL.

Even with his success in his lone season in Oxford, Mississippi, Chambliss doesn’t have the measurables that NFL personnel look for, namely his size, as he’s expected to check in at under 6 feet tall. However, the likes of Russell Wilson, and to some extent, Kyler Murray and Bryce Young, have succeeded in the pros despite lacking stature. Chambliss was projected as a late-round pick, but his performance in the College Football Playoff could make him a Day 2 selection, which would be the second or third round of the 2026 NFL Draft.