Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss overcome late rally from Lane Kiffin and LSU to win grudge match in 32-24 thriller

OXFORD, Miss. — There’s a campaign sign all over Oxford these days: TRINIDAD / KEWAN 2026. Based on how Saturday night at Vaught-Hemingway went, that ticket would win every vote in Mississippi outside of Starkville. 

Led by Trinidad Chambliss (33 of 48, 363 passing yards, three total TDs), Ole Miss beat LSU 32-24. 

Maybe even more impressively, Ole Miss reduced the headline-dominating Lane Kiffin to an afterthought, sending him hustling out of Oxford once again despite a late Tiger surge.

Chambliss was the hero of the day for the Rebels, leading a clutch touchdown drive and scoring on a bootleg with just over five minutes left in the game. Ole Miss then converted on the two-point attempt to extend its lead to eight points.

The Rebels’ defense still had more work to do, and Sam Leavitt was more than game in leading the Tigers down for a potential game-tying score. But ultimately, Leavitt’s third-down pass from the 6-yard line fell incomplete and then Ole Miss’ Jaylon Braxton intercepted the fourth-down attempt after the pass was tipped to give the Rebels bragging rights in the bitter rivalry.

Ole Miss and LSU started playing the Magnolia Bowl way back in 1893. (Ole Miss won that one, 26-6.) Over the course of 113 more meetings since then heading into Saturday, they’ve each authored dramatic victories and suffered humiliating defeats. But through it all, through Billy Cannon’s Halloween Run and The Night The Clock Stopped, through Archie and Eli, there had never been a game between these two quite like Saturday’s … because they’d never shared a coach quite like Kiffin. 

You know the story. Kiffin spent the last few weeks of the 2025 regular season — arguably the finest in Ole Miss history — flirting with the LSU job. When he did decamp to Baton Rouge, wrangling several of his staff and Ole Miss players along with him, Ole Miss, to quote that Michael Jordan meme, took that personally. 

After Kiffin skipped town, the Rebels reached the CFP semifinals … and then circled Kiffin’s return to Oxford on Saturday night on their calendars in blood. And once the day came around, Oxford showed out when Kiffin showed up. 

An estimated 300,000 people flooded into Oxford on Saturday for the game. Very much related: Vaught-Hemingway Stadium has a capacity of 64,038. That meant tens of thousands of rabid Rebels, with a smattering of Tigers, swarmed every restaurant, bar, tailgate and port-a-john in town, starting almost as soon as the sun rose. By the time kickoff finally came around at 6:49 Central, all 300,000 — whether inside or outside the stadium — were amped to the gills. (Excluding the ones who went a little too hard too early, of course.) 

Both teams started rocky, three-and-out’ing with negative yardage. But on their second possession, the Rebels found their footing, covering 59 yards in 12 plays to get on the board with a field goal. And from there, Chambliss went to work, leading the Rebels to touchdowns on three straight drives. 

With precision, touch and guts large enough to be seen from space, Chambliss threaded passes over, around and through LSU defenders. This was the kind of performance that made Kiffin bring him to Oxford in the first place, and the kind of performance that Chambliss had hoped to post when he sued his way back into college football. 

LSU, meanwhile, struggled on offense early, unable to move the ball with any consistency or regularity. Sam Leavitt spent most of the first half on the run, stymied by the Ole Miss defense at every turn. And even when he had opportunities, he struggled to close the deal, air-mailing a wide-open receiver in the end zone, among other sins. As a result, LSU fell behind 17-0, and the Lane-haters partied in the stands. 

When LSU did finally score, in part because of a 75-yard lateral scramble by Leavitt that set up a Dilin Jones dive from the 2-yard line with less than two minutes remaining in the first half, Ole Miss quickly responded with an eight-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that ate up the rest of the half. With 30 minutes done, the Rebels led the Tigers 24-7, and the parties resounded from the stadium to the Grove to the Square. 

After four straight scoring drives, Chambliss made his first error midway through the third quarter, and it was a costly one — an interception that LSU flipped into a touchdown. After forcing Ole Miss into a missed field goal, the Tigers again stormed down the field, culminating the drive with a beautiful pitch-and-catch from Leavitt to Ole Miss transfer Winston Watkins Jr. 

And just like that, the Tigers were back within three … and as the third quarter wrapped up  Vaught-Hemingway Stadium was very, very quiet. Less than four minutes later, the Tigers tied it up at 24 with a field goal, capping a run of 17 straight points of their own. 

Along the way, Ole Miss lost Lacy, who left the game with what Ole Miss described as an “upper body injury.” Lacy had appeared to land hard on his left shoulder, the same shoulder he’d injured during the College Football Playoff badly enough to require surgery. 

With just over 11 minutes left in the game and the score tied, Chambliss had to figure out how to leave behind his woeful third quarter and recapture the magic of the first half. He did just that to lift the Rebels over the Tigers.

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