Kirk Herbstreit says Trinidad Chambliss is ‘the face of the sport’ entering 2026
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Kirk Herbstreit saw what everybody else saw last season as Trinidad Chambliss exploded onto the college football scene and nearly led Ole Miss to the national championship game.
Chambliss was electrifying, pushing the Rebels all the way to the College Football Playoff semifinals, where they fell in a heartbreaker to Miami. But the ride he engineered in Oxford was memorable, and Herbstreit believes Chambliss is in for more heroics this fall.
On Tuesday afternoon, during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, Herbstreit talked Ole Miss and a little LSU, too, with the instant connection between the 2 programs now because of Lane Kiffin. But he also squarely focused on Chambliss, who threw for a whopping 3,937 yards with 22 touchdown passes and only 3 interceptions during his 2025 breakout campaign.
He also rumbled for 527 yards and 8 touchdowns on the ground as a dual-threat dynamo that Herbstreit couldn’t say enough about on Tuesday as Chambliss gets ready to unleash on defenses again this fall.
“The face of the sport going into this season, as much as people are going to talk about Arch Manning, I really think Trinidad Chambliss at Ole Miss, him getting that year, it looked like he might not get it … getting that year, everything got taken care of,” Herbstreit said. “He is so refreshing, when you get around this guy, you’ll instantly fall in love with his personality.”
Chambliss had the Rebels 1 victory from the national championship game last season, and judging by what Herbstreit said on Tuesday, it wouldn’t surprise him to see Ole Miss right back in the Playoff. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about the Rebels’ chances to return to the Playoff in 2026:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
