Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss has taken his eligibility fight to court, filing a petition Friday in court that asks a Mississippi judge to block the NCAA from enforcing a decision that would end his college career.
The 34-page petition seeks a preliminary injunction that, if granted and later made permanent, could allow Chambliss to play during the 2026 season. Without such relief, the quarterback would be forced to move on to the NFL.
The NCAA denied Chambliss’ request for a sixth year of eligibility on Jan. 9. Chambliss redshirted as a freshman at Division II Ferris State in 2021 and spent the 2022, 2023 and 2024 seasons on the Bulldogs’ roster before transferring to Ole Miss ahead of the 2025 season.
Chambliss retained attorney Tom Mars to handle his waiver request with the NCAA. After the denial, he also hired Mississippi-based attorney William Liston III, a co-founder of the Grove Collective, which provides name, image and likeness services for Ole Miss athletes.
What sets Trinidad Chambliss' case apart
Unlike most recent eligibility challenges, Chambliss’ case was filed in state court on contractual grounds rather than in federal court under antitrust law. His attorneys argue the NCAA applied its rules unevenly and improperly denied a waiver that should have been granted.
"The NCAA grievously erred in its handling, consideration, and adjudication of Ole Miss's request for the eligibility waiver, and in such process breached the duty of good faith and fair dealing owed to Trinidad," the petition read. "Respectfully, this Court should declare it so, and enter a Declaratory Judgment finding that Trinidad is eligible to participate in Division I intercollegiate football at Ole Miss in the 2026-2027 academic year."
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Key to the petition is the claim that Chambliss has competed in only three seasons of college football, not four. His attorneys argue he was medically unable to compete during the 2022 season because of enlarged tonsils following bouts of mononucleosis. The filing states that airway obstruction caused by the condition limited his ability to participate early in his career at Ferris State.
Trinidad Chambliss' history in the case
After redshirting in 2021 and not appearing in games in 2022, Chambliss first saw the field for Ferris State in 2023. He led the Bulldogs to a Division II national championship in 2024 before transferring to Ole Miss with plans to back up Austin Simmons in 2025.
Those plans changed when Simmons was injured early in the season. Chambliss was pressed into action and helped lead Ole Miss to the College Football Playoff semifinals, where the Rebels fell to Miami in the Fiesta Bowl. He threw for 3,937 yards and 22 touchdowns and added 527 rushing yards and eight scores.
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The NCAA denied the waiver in part because Ferris State did not seek a medical hardship waiver during the 2022 season. Chambliss’ attorneys counter that a waiver was unnecessary at the time and that Division II waiver standards and not Division I rules should apply.
“In 2022, and until Ole Miss’s 2025 request to the NCAA for an eligibility waiver, Trinidad could not foresee any need to obtain a medical opinion,” the petition states, adding that medical records from 2022 were submitted as part of the appeal.
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