Trinidad Chambliss didn’t need a long runway to get NFL people talking. One start last season was enough to flip the conversation, and now, after taking over at Ole Miss and turning into one of the breakout names of the 2025 college football season, he’s being discussed in a very different lane: Heisman candidate, early-round NFL possibility, maybe even a first-rounder.
The buzz really started with that 415-yard performance against Arkansas, when Chambliss was only in the lineup because Austin Simmons was hurt and had not yet become the Rebels’ full-time starter. Even then, one opposing coach was blunt with CBS Sports: “If they play Simmons (against us), they're doing us a favor,” that coach told CBS Sports at the time.
A year later, Chambliss has done far more than survive that first impression. He’s moved from surprise transfer success story out of Ferris State to one of the more intriguing quarterbacks in the draft conversation. Through Ole Miss’ 3-0 start, NFL scouts are sounding more convinced than they were before the season.
Multiple NFL scouting sources, including a college scouting director, told CBS Sports this week that they currently have NFL starter/first-round grades on Chambliss. One area scout even said Chambliss is beginning to bring former 10-time Pro Bowl selection Russell Wilson to mind, though he stopped short of calling him a sure thing in Round 1.
“Everything with the makeup is really cool,” the scout said. “He's so even-keeled.
He's so calm and collected. The kid never gets rattled in big moments.
And I've been saying it since I saw him in fall camp, but he's also made a jump (since last year).”
That rising stock is getting a boost from the broader quarterback landscape, too. The class of 2027 quarterbacks that entered the season with plenty of hype has, in the eyes of NFL scouts, mostly fallen flat so far. Around the league, there’s a growing sense that a lot of those passers would be better served going back to college than making the jump now.
Chambliss, meanwhile, has kept stacking strong outings. Against Power Four opponents in Ole Miss’ first two games of that sort this season - a 41-38 win over Louisville and a 32-24 victory over LSU last weekend - he threw for 699 yards and accounted for seven total touchdowns.
“In a class like this where there's a lot of people that aren't really standing out and he is, it's like how can you bet it against this guy?” a scout said. “He's got a cool humility about him, but I think deep down he's got some like inner confidence to him, some shit to him, and you're starting to see that.”
Still, not everyone is ready to stamp him as a clean first-rounder. Some personnel people still view Chambliss as a Day 2 prospect, and a few are even holding him in the fringe Day 2 to early Day 3 range.
One player personnel director pointed to his size and his fit in a standard NFL offense, noting that Chambliss officially measured at 5-foot-11 7/8 and 208 pounds. That same evaluator also raised concerns about “operating on time in a normal NFL offense.”
“Feels untraditional,” the player personnel director said.
But the most recent feedback CBS Sports gathered leaned much higher than that. Several NFL voices put Chambliss in the top-two-round discussion, and some are already treating him like a legitimate first-round candidate.
“Love what I see,” one college scouting director said.
“Really good football player,” said another college scouting director. “In a business of overthinking, stop overthinking.”
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Lane Kiffin left Oxford with more than a loss to sort through after LSUs trip to face Ole Miss, zeroing in on what he described as a rules issue tied to the in-game atmosphere. He said the music and crowd noise kept rolling as the centers hand was on the ball, which he argued runs afoul of SEC regulations that require music to stop before the snap.
The complaint only adds another layer to a night LSU would rather forget, with Ole Miss staying unbeaten and the Tigers taking their first loss of the season. For Rebels fans, it is the kind of gripe that usually follows a home win in a loud building, but for LSU it gives the defeat an even sharper edge as the postgame debate shifts from the scoreboard to how the game was played. [Read more 🡒]
Urban Meyer Just Validated What Florida Fans Are Starting To Believe
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Ole Miss Faces A No. 1 Test Some Insiders Don't Trust Them To Pass
Ole Miss is headed into a marquee SEC matchup with plenty of momentum, but not everyone around the sport is sold on the Rebels carrying that confidence into the next step. Both teams arrive at 3-0 after recent conference wins, and the stage is set around quarterback Trinidad Chambliss for Ole Miss and Florida running back Jadan Baugh for the Gators, two players who have helped give their teams early-season belief.
Even Rece Davis, who placed Ole Miss No. 1 in the AP Poll, leaned the other way when it came to the actual result and picked Florida to win. That kind of split view only adds to the intrigue, because it captures the larger question around this game - whether Ole Miss is ready to back up its ranking against a Florida team that has also shown it can handle SEC pressure. [Read more 🡒]