Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss has secured the ability to return to the program for another year.
Via Pete Thamel of ESPN.com, a Mississippi judge has granted Chambliss a preliminary injunction against the NCAA. Among other things, the judge concluded that the NCAA acted in bad faith when denying Chambliss a medical redshirt based on a respiratory issue that kept him from playing in 2022, while enrolled at Ferris State. He didn’t play a single snap that year, and he didn’t dress for games.
The selection of a Mississippi state court clearly helped Chambliss. It’s a home-court advantage to have the case resolved by a Mississippi judge who was elected by (and presumably hopes to be re-elected by) Mississippi voters. As it would be for any student at any school based in any state where the NCAA operates.
Given that the order will apply as the case proceeds, Chambliss will be permitted to play unless the presiding judge resolves the case in the NCAA’s favor before the end of the 2026 season — or unless the NCAA can overturn the ruling via appeal to a higher Mississippi court.
In the face of its latest courtroom failure, the NCAA was predictably defiant.
“This decision in a state court illustrates the impossible situation created by differing court decisions that serve to undermine rules agreed to by the same NCAA members who later challenge them in court,” the NCAA said in a statement. “We will continue to defend the NCAA’s eligibility rules against repeated attempts to rob future generations of the opportunity to compete in college and experience the life-changing opportunities only college sports can create.
“The NCAA and its member schools are making changes to deliver more benefits to student-athletes, but the patchwork of state laws and inconsistent, conflicting court decisions make partnering with Congress essential to provide stability for current and future college athletes.”
That’s code for the ongoing plea to get Congress to federalize college sports, and to allow the schools to return to the days of blatant antitrust violations. To date, that effort has gone nowhere.
And the NCAA’s ridiculous sky-is-falling! message is exhausting. If Trinidad Chambliss, or anyone else, has remaining eligibility, he should be entitled to use it. If the folks at Ole Miss decide it’s in the best interests of the program to keep Chambliss on the field and if he can show that the rules should give him another year, the ridiculous rhetoric about “future generations” being “robbed” of “opportunity” should be ignored. It’s not making the NCAA’s current situation or reputation any better.
In recent years, the NCAA has gradually been exposed as nothing more than a shield behind which the various schools had previously hidden to justify not paying players. And even though the NCAA surely pines for the days when it had real power, the institution is currently nothing more than a toothless, arbitrary bureaucracy.
Frankly, the sooner the NCAA goes away, the better off the member universities and their student-athlete-employees will be. The NCAA is currently trying to help only itself, by finding a solution to the current college-sports chaos that doesn’t result in the NCAA’s extinction.
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