OXFORD — LSU knew better than any other team in America what it was facing in Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss. In this case, familiarity breeds not contempt but respect. Familiarity did not help the Tigers one single bit. The outcome of one of the most anticipated games in Mississippi history was on the line, and Chambliss stepped up and won it.
Rick ClevelandThat’s all he did. He won the game. Chambliss was, as he so often is, magical in the Rebels’ hard-earned 32-24 victory amid one of the most intense atmospheres imaginable. This game was dripping emotion from both teams and more than 70,000 fans.
READ MORE: Shakespeare could have written this LSU-Ole Miss football plotREAD MORE: The Grove, the crowds, the rivalry: Football fans party together, and taunt each other, on LSU-Ole Miss game dayChambliss’s numbers, impressive as they were, tell only part of the story, but let’s get that part out of the way. He did it with his right arm, completing 33 of 48 passes for 363 yards and two touchdowns. He did it with his legs, often racing away from a fierce LSU pass rush to throw perfect darts, and then scoring the winning touchdown on a 14-yard scamper with five minutes, seven seconds remaining.
When Ole Miss needed him most, Chambliss delivered. As Pete Golding said of Chambliss afterward, “He’s just such a fierce competitor. That’s why our guys believe in him.”
Mississippi head coach Pete Golding calls out to his team during the second half of an NCAA college football game against LSU in Oxford, Miss., Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. Credit: AP Photo/Rogelio V. SolisLane Kiffin, Chambliss’s coach until Kiffin quit Ole Miss on the verge of the NCAA playoffs last year, called Chambliss “the most dynamic player in college football. … You scheme him up and you make good (defensive) calls, and he just makes plays. That’s why he is who he is.”
“Houdini plays,” Kiffin called them.
If you watched the game you know Chambliss didn’t do it by himself. The Ole Miss defense, especially in the first half, pursued with uncommon speed and aggressiveness. Rebel receivers made big plays, too, especially heretofore little-used slot receiver Traylon Ray.
“Traylon, who?” you might ask, as I did, when Ray kept making big catch after big catch.
Traylon Ray, who transferred to Ole Miss from West Virginia last year, couldn’t get on the field as a wide receiver and was switched to cornerback because the Ole Miss really needed help at that position. That didn’t work out, either, but he returned to Ole Miss for his junior season when promised a chance to again play wide receiver. He didn’t catch a single pass last year. He caught four for 54 yards in the Rebels’ first two games this year.
And then came Saturday night when the Tallahassee native was targeted eight times and caught seven passes for 115 yards and one touchdown. Chambliss says Rebel fans should get used to it. “He’s great guy and a great player,” Chambliss said of Ray. “He made some really big plays tonight.”
The respect is mutual. “Trinidad has a lot of trust in me and I have a lot of trust in him,” Ray said. “Trinidad’s a gamer.”
LSU head coach Lane Kiffin, left, shows his disappointment to his staff as they lose to Mississippi during an NCAA college football game in Oxford, Miss., Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. Credit: AP Photo/Rogelio V. SolisOle Miss needed players to step up because running back Kewan Lacy, the Rebels’ other superstar, missed the second half with a banged up shoulder after running nine times for 43 tough yards and a touchdown in the first half. JT Lindsey, a transfer from LSU, played well in relief of Lacy, running four times for 20 yards and a couple key first downs.
But let’s get back to Chambliss, who really might be the most entertaining player in the country and is currently in the first sentence of any way-too-early conversation about the 2026 Heisman Trophy.
Let’s look at the four Ole Miss touchdown drives. On the first, which gave the Rebels a 10-0 first quarter lead, Chambliss completed all four of his passes for 70 yards, setting up Lacy’s five-yard touchdown lead. On the second Rebel TD drive, which put the Rebels up 17-0, he completed four of six passes for 37 yards, including a 21-yard TD strike to Ray.
On the third, after LSU had scored, Chambliss responded by hitting six of eight throws for 75 yards, including a 20-yard touchdown throw to Deuce Alexander for a 24-7 Ole Miss lead late in the first half. By that time, most of the 70,033 fans were dancing in the aisles. Vaught-Hemingway Stadium has rarely, if ever, been so loud.
LSU stopped all that dancing in the second half when the Tigers reeled off 17 straight points to draw even at 24. Momentum had done an about-face. After running only 14 times for 55 yards in the first half, the Tigers went physical and started pushing the Rebels around for 117 rushing yards in the second half, much of it right at the heart of the Ole Miss defense.
So that made the score 24-all and set the stage for the climax of Saturday night’s Trinidad Show. Chambliss drove the Rebels 75 yards in 12 plays, personally accounting for all the yardage. He completed six of eight passes for 62 yards, and then scored the winning touchdown with one of those “Houdini” plays. He faked a handoff to Lindsey and kept the ball around left end for a 14 yards and a touchdown. All but one Tiger bit on the fake, and Chambliss simply out-ran him. This storied old concrete stadium might or might not have shaken at that precise moment.
Mississippi running back JT Lindsey (26) runs into the end zone for a two-point conversion during the second half of an NCAA college football game against LSU in Oxford, Miss., Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. Credit: AP Photo/Rogelio V. SolisAnd then Ole Miss pulled one over on LSU, lining up for a two-point conversion. Just when some of us thought the Rebels coaches had gone mad, Chambliss fooled LSU with a hard count and the Tigers jumped offsides. So Ole Miss lined up, looking as if they would go for two again from the one-yard line. And guess what, LSU jumped again. So now, needing only 18 inches, Chambliss really did take the snap and hand the ball to Lindsey for an easy two points.
“We practiced that all week,” Golding said. “With an eight-point lead (and just five minutes left), we knew we couldn’t lose.”
It did get hairy. LSU, as talented as you would expect with a reported $50 million roster payroll, drove to the Ole Miss six. On fourth and goal from there, Kam Franklin batted Sam Leavitt’s pass high into the air and Jaylon Braxton snatched it to seal the deal and set off a lengthy on-field victory celebration.
“Congrats to those guys; they deserved to win,” Kiffin would say post-game.
“I’m just so happy for our guys,” Golding said before trying to set the tone for what comes next for Ole Miss.
“This wasn’t the Super Bowl,” Golding said. “Am I super proud of them? Yes. But this wasn’t our goal. We’ve got a really tough game next week against a really talented Florida team, We’ll celebrate tonight and then get back to work.”
Not to worry, said Traylon Ray, the Rebels’ newest football hero, “Tonight, we celebrate,” Ray said. “Tomorrow when I wake up, it’s back to work.”
The future of the Ole Miss team is filled with wonderful possibilities. That said, for all who bleed Red and Blue, the immediate past will be treasured no matter what comes next.
Mississippi cornerback Jaylon Braxton (2) secures an end zone interception of a LSU pass during the second half of an NCAA college football game in Oxford, Miss., Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. Credit: AP Photo/Rogelio V. SolisHence then, the article about trinidad chambliss and the rebels put lane kiffin in the rearview mirror was published today ( ) and is available on Mississippi Today ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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