Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss sues NCAA for extra year of eligibility

Mississippi quarterback Trinidad Chambliss sued the NCAA in state court on Friday for an additional year of eligibility so he can play for the Rebels next season.

The suit filed in Lafayette County came a week after the NCAA denied Ole Miss' request for an extra year, saying the university and Chambliss' previous school — Ferris State — failed to provide adequate medical documentation to back up the request.

The lawsuit filed Friday called the NCAA's denial in “bad-faith, unreasonable and arbitrary,” and detailed Chambliss' history of illness and included letters from physicians.

“Despite the duty of good faith and fair dealing it owes to Trinidad, the NCAA insists on considering the evidence in Trinidad's case in an isolated, rather than comprehensive manner; interpreting its rules to impose requirements not contained therein; taking unreasonable if not irrational positions; and acting in an arbitrary and capricious manner in its decision-making and ruling," the suit says.

Ole Miss' arguments revolve around the fact that the 23-year-old Chambliss, although he has been in college for five years, has only played three years of college football because of that medical history.

“Trinidad first enrolled in Ferris State in the fall of 2021, but medical and physical incapacity prevented his ability to adequately train and condition and develop athletically,” the suit says.

After taking a redshirt his first season at Ferris State in 2021-22, Chambliss was held out in his second season for medical reasons.

“Obviously, Trinidad's medical conditions, which rendered him incapable of competing in any game during these years, were beyond his or Ferris State's control,” the suit says.

He played two more seasons at the Division II school in Michigan, leading the Bulldogs to a national championship before transferring to Ole Miss before the start of this season.

Chambliss completed 294 of 445 passes (66.1%) for 3,937 yards with 22 touchdowns and three interceptions for Ole Miss (13-2), which set a school record for wins, including two after making the College Football Playoff for the first time. He ran for 527 yards and eight more TDs.

The Rebels lost 31-27 to Miami in the College Football Playoff semifinals on Jan. 8.

The NCAA, when contacted Friday, did not have a new statement, but referred to its statement from a week ago saying “This decision aligns with consistent application of NCAA rules.”

The NCAA said in that week-old statement that approval of such waivers requires schools to submit medical documentation from a treating physician at the time of a student’s incapacitating injury or illness.

“The documents provided by Ole Miss and the student’s prior school include a physician’s note from a December 2022 visit, which stated the student-athlete was ‘doing very well’ since he was seen in August 2022," the NCAA said. "Additionally, the student-athlete’s prior school indicated it had no documentation on medical treatment, injury reports or medical conditions involving the student-athlete during that time frame and cited ‘developmental needs and our team’s competitive circumstances’ as its reason the student-athlete did not play in the 2022-23 season.”

Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter previously said the school will appeal the NCAA’s ruling.

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Mississippi quarterback Trinidad Chambliss throws during the first half of the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football playoff semifinal game against Miami, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

New York will lose more than $73.5 million in federal money because the Transportation Department said Thursday that state has refused to revoke nearly 33,000 questionable commercial driver's licenses for immigrants since an audit uncovered problems last year.

The department said that more than half of the 200 licenses reviewed during the audit had significant problems such as remaining valid long after an immigrant was authorized to be in the country. So the state was ordered to review all of this type of licenses and revoke illegal ones.

The federal government has reviewed records related to these non-domiciled CDLs in every state since Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy put a spotlight on this issue after an August crash in Florida that killed three people. Most states have either complied or are in negotiations with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, but California has lost $200 million. Several other states — including Pennsylvania, Minnesota and North Carolina — have been warned they are at risk of losing some funding.

“I promised the American people I would hold any state leader accountable for failing to keep them safe from unvetted, unqualified foreign drivers. I’m delivering on that promise today,” Duffy said.

Duffy has said that immigrants account for about 20% of all truck drivers nationwide, but these non-domiciled licenses immigrants can receive only represent about 5% of all commercial driver’s licenses or about 200,000 drivers. New York issued 32,606 of them.

New York officials have defended their licensing practices and said they are complying with federal law and that audits done during the first Trump administration supported that. Duffy also has threatened to pull federal funding from New York if it does not abandon a congestion pricing fee in New York City and if crime on the subway system is not addressed.

Gov. Kathy Hochul's spokesman Sean Butler said the action related to commercial driver's licenses seems to be part of broad effort to attack blue states.

“This continues a yearlong pattern of Secretary Duffy threatening to withhold money that keeps our roads, subways, and other infrastructure safe for New Yorkers. We will fight back, and once again we will win,” Butler said.

Trucking industry groups have praised the Transportation Department's efforts to get unqualified drivers off the road, crack down on questionable trucking schools and go after trucking companies that violate the rules and then just change their names and keep operating. The industry said that too often unqualified drivers who shouldn’t have licenses or can’t speak English have been allowed to get behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound (about 39,916 kilograms) truck.

But immigrant groups say that some drivers are now being unfairly targeted. The spotlight has been on Sikh truckers because the driver in the Florida crash and the driver in another fatal crash in California in October are both Sikhs.

FILE - New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Governor Kathy Hochul arrive at a press conference at Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling, March 3, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)