Trinidad Chambliss: The Former Division II QB Taking the SEC by Storm

Sorry, LSU Tigers, but you’re no Pittsburg State Gorillas.

With Saturday’s 24-19 loss at Ole Miss, LSU joined a long list of opponents to lose to a Trinidad Chambliss in the last 13 months. Chambliss hasn’t lost a game since Aug. 31, 2024, when Pittsburg State beat Ferris State, 19-3.

Since then, Chambliss has gone on a whirlwind tear that has taken him from the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference to the Southeastern Conference.

For much of the college football-watching nation, Saturday provided an introduction to the Ole Miss quarterback Chambliss. For those who followed his exploits at Div. II program Ferris State, Chambliss helping No. 13-ranked Ole Miss to a 24-19 win over No. 4 LSU was nothing new.

Chambliss passed for 314 yards with a touchdown and rushed for another 71 yards — the kind of numbers he routinely put up a season ago for Ferris State. In fact, he carried for three yards more against an LSU defense with NFL-caliber talent than he averaged per game in 2024.

Chambliss’ passing yardage on Saturday also exceeded his average of 195 yards per game in Div. II last year. But that, too, is quickly becoming old hat for Chambliss.

In his three starts for Ole Miss since Austin Simmons sustained an ankle injury following the Rebels’ 30-23 win over Kentucky in Week 2, Chambliss has passed for 353 yards against SEC foe Arkansas; 307 yards against a good Tulane team; and Saturday’s 314 yards against an LSU side that came into Oxford holding opponents to just 182.3 passing yards per game.

With Ole Miss winning all three games, Chambliss has run off 17 straight victories as QB1 since that Week 0 slip-up at Pittsburg State. His teams have scored at least 24 points every time out — only Ferris State’s GLIAC counterpart Davenport managed to contain a Chambliss-led offense as effectively as LSU — and he’s won a national championship.

Ferris State stormed through the 2024 NCAA Div. II Playoffs facing little resistance. Chambliss accounted for five total touchdowns in a 78-17 blowout of Central Oklahoma; four against defending national champion Harding in a 41-7 romp; four against Slippery Rock in a 48-38 semifinal win; and saved his best for last: three passing touchdowns and two rushing in a 49-14 blowout of Valdosta State.

Chambliss conquered Div. II football, and done so rather convincingly. It’s no wonder, then, he sought a new frontier in the transfer portal.

And he isn’t the first recent championship-winning quarterback to make that jump from Div. II to the Football Bowl Subdivision. Austin Reed, who set national championship game passing records for West Florida in 2019, moved on to be the nation’s second-leading passer in yards per game at Western Kentucky in 2022.

But for Chambliss to jump from Ferris State to a power conference — and not just a power conference, but the power conference, the SEC — and a College Football Playoff hopeful at Ole Miss was a whole new challenge.

The step up in the level of competition from game day to game day is inherent when comparing the athletic budgets in Div. II to FBS power conferences. The NCAA reported that in 2023, the most a Div. II athletic department generated was $6.95 million dollars; Ole Miss Lane Kiffin alone is paid $9 million.

That competition extends into his new team. Chambliss joined an Ole Miss roster that already had Simmons, who backed up first-round NFL draft pick Jaxson Dart.

Simmons chose Ole Miss over recruiting offers from other SEC programs including Arkansas, Auburn and Florida. Coming out of Forest Hills Northern High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Chambliss was a 0-star recruit per 247sports.com with his only Div. I offers coming from non-scholarship FCS programs Butler and Dayton.

But, as Chambliss told Sam Hutchens of the Clarion-Ledger earlier this month, “Everyone's journey and process is different.”

Kiffin referred to Chambliss glowingly as a “little, short kid from D-II.” Well, the little kid who starred at the program in Big Rapids has Ole Miss heading into October at 5-0 with a top-five win and a fast-growing Playoff resume.

What Chambliss’ role might be in the Playoff chase once Simmons returns to full strength adds another layer to the “great story” Kiffin described following Saturday’s win.

Chambliss caught some passes in Ferris State’s 2024 national championship game appearance. He also split duties extensively with Carson Gulker and Mylik Mitchell in 2023.

There’s no shortage of ways in which Chambliss can help keep Ole Miss at the forefront of the SEC title race — and plenty of chances for him to keep rolling on a winning streak that started since a loss at Pittsburg State.