By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Maybe LSU can send Ole Miss a draft choice or a transfer to be named later, should the Tigers sweep a quarterback-running back doubleheader in the 2025-26 NCAA Transfer Portal.
Ole Miss senior (for now) quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and sophomore running back Kewan Lacy played a combined three seasons for former Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, who has been LSU’s head coach since Nov. 30.
Word is Kiffin would very much like that each of them transfer to LSU shortly after the Rebels’ season ends. No. 6 Ole Miss (11-1) plays No. 11 Tulane (11-2) on Saturday (2:15 p.m., TNT) in a first round College Football Playoff game in Oxford. The winner advances to the Sugar Bowl to play No. 3 Georgia (12-1) in the 12-team playoff.
LSU’s new offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Charlie Weis Jr. and other new LSU assistants who followed Kiffin to LSU have been in Oxford coaching the Rebels up for the playoffs with new head coach Pete Golding, who was promoted from defensive coordinator after Kiffin left.
Chambliss is waiting to find out if he receives a waiver from the NCAA to grant him another season of college eligibility since he was at Division II Ferris State from 2021 through 2024. He was red-shirted in ’21 and played in only two games in ’22. So, his argument for a six-year clock in college, as opposed to the customary five-year window, is he has only played three complete seasons, and two of those were in Division II.
On paper, it doesn’t read like a strong argument. Just because he only played two games in 2022 because he wasn’t good enough to play more after his red-shirt season doesn’t mean that he deserves another season. He wasn’t hurt in 2022.
Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia sued the NCAA last year and was awarded a sixth year, but his case concerned his two years of junior college football before two at New Mexico State and his 2024 season at Vanderbilt. As with many things with the NCAA, its rules are vague. And Chambliss believes he has a chance.
“I trust in Jesus Christ,” he said Monday at a College Football Playoff press conference, “that the waiver is approved. Yeah, I have faith.”
The NCAA has been notoriously weak in recent years in enforcing its own rules when challenged, and it tends to lose more court cases than attorney Hamilton Burger did against Perry Mason.
“As of right now, no,” Chambliss said when asked if he has heard from the NCAA. “But I think I will get an answer this week.”
If he is granted another season, then the question is if he will stay at Ole Miss or follow Kiffin, who took a chance on a Division II player from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Weis along with wide receivers coach/pass game coordinator George McDonald, assistant quarterbacks coach Dane Stevens, tight ends coach Joe Cox, and slot receivers coach Sawyer Jordan from Ole Miss to LSU.
The whole bunch is coaching Chambliss and the Rebels now, and maybe doing a little recruiting on the side – wink, wink. So, the numbers look good for LSU in Rebels’ clothing at the moment.
Chambliss (6-0, 200) is coming off a terrific season in Kiffin’s and Weis’ and McDonald’s offense. He is No. 17 in the nation in efficiency at the moment at 157.6 on 218-of-333 passing for 3,016 yards and 18 touchdowns with only three interceptions. He has rushed 118 times for 470 yards and six touchdowns. He threw for 2,901 yards and 26 TDs and rushed for 1,019 and 25 TDs last season in leading Ferris State to the national championship in 2024.
He was asked on Monday – should he get get his waiver – if he “anticipates being at Ole Miss or would you have to consider” other options, if he doesn’t enter the NFL Draft.
“You hit it right on the nail,” Chambliss said. “I would have to consider what the best situation is for me, what I feel most comfortable with, who I trust the most, and just get a feel for every possibility, really. There’s a lot that goes into that.”
Not the answer Ole Miss fans wanted to hear. In other words, he is approaching this playoff game much like Kiffin approached his final regular season games at Ole Miss – with one foot at Ole Miss and another foot at LSU, Florida or Florida State.
Chambliss knows Kiffin, Weis, McDonald, Stevens, Cox and Jordan better than Ole Miss’ new offensive coordinator, John David Baker, who was recently hired from the OC post at East Carolina, but is not taking part in any of the Rebels’ preparations for the playoffs. Baker could be recruiting him, though, wink, wink, along with newly hired offensive assistant Michael Spurlock, a former Ole Miss quarterback who coached running backs at Southern Mississippi this past season.
Such multi-tasking drama.
Meanwhile, Lacy is coming off a great regular season as well, having gained 1,279 yards on 258 carries with 20 touchdowns for the Rebels, because Kiffin really likes and has been good at running the ball at Ole Miss for years.
A strange video has circulated in recent days that features Kiffin talking like he already has Lacy committed to following him to LSU.
“It was just a surprise,” Lacy said when asked about that on Monday. “You know, I’ve just been keeping my mind set on just trying to go 1-0 and focus on the run we’re having right now. So, I don’t get into all that.”
That’s a better answer for Ole Miss fans, but he didn’t exactly say he will be staying after the playoffs.
Lacy still does have his running back coach Kevin Smith with him at Ole Miss. There was thought that Smith may also be LSU bound, but that has not happened publicly yet.
“I still have my coach,” Lacy said. “So, I’ve just been going day by day trying to focus on Tulane and our preparation. So, yeah, for the most part everything’s been the same.”
There’s nothing the “same” about Ole Miss and its future LSU coaches about to try to finish what could be the greatest season in Ole Miss history while LSU watches.
In essence, an Ole Miss touchdown Saturday is an LSU touchdown. And an Ole Miss win is an LSU win. And a Chambliss and/or Lacy TD could be an LSU TD. LSU fans and media sure seem more interested in Ole Miss and Tulane than LSU’s game against Houston in the Texas Bowl.
And that is eating Ole Miss up.
Maybe that is why Tiger Rag and other Louisiana media outlets have been denied credentials to Saturday’s game. They were told because of “space.”
Maybe, that’s accurate.
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