Annese and Kiffin saw in Chambliss what Belichick and others missed
PHOTO: Ferris State transfer Trinidad Chambliss proves to be a bargain for Mississippi.
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— Click here for review and purchase link: THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s and here for a purchase link to RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans.
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By TOM SHANAHAN
Mississippi signed quarterback Trinidad Chambliss as a senior transfer to a one-year deal paying him $300,000. A year ago, he led Ferris State and head coach Tony Annese to the NCAA Division II national title.
North Carolina signed quarterback Gio Lopez, a transfer South Alabama, a Sun Belt Conference member in the Group of 5, to a two-year package reported to be $4 million.
Chambliss arrived in Oxford as a backup to incumbent starter Austin Williams, but he’s slated to make his second straight start for No. 13-ranked Ole Miss (4-0, 2-0 SEC) against No. 4 LSU (4-0, 1-0 SEC) Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
Lopez and the Tar Heels (2-2), who have a bye this week, are struggling.
As someone from Big Rapids and now living in the heart of North Carolina’s ACC territory, I couldn’t resist pointing out the irony.
Ole Miss and Chambliss may earn a College Football Playoff berth. North Carolina and Lopez are tumbling to the bottom of the ACC.
Maybe it’s time for college football to inaugurate an award for evaluating transfer portal talent and signing the best bargains. It’s sort of like recognizing pro teams that excel signing free agents.
At the top of the list are Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin and general manager Billy Glasscock. Out of the picture are North Carolina coach Bill Belichick and general Mike Lombardi.
North Carolina signed Belichick to a $10 million deal that is looking worse by the game. The lucrative deal was based on assuming a Super Bowl champion coach knows how to win at the college level.
Well, forget Belichick’s six Super Bowl rings with the New England Patriots and Lombardi’s long association with him through stints with the Cleveland Browns and Patriots. And forget Kiffin was fired four games into his second season with the Oakland Raiders. Since then, Kiffin is in his 14th season as a college head coach at Tennessee (2009), USC (2010-13), Florida Atlantic (2017-19) and now Ole Miss (2020-).
The eyes of Kiffin and Glasscock to evaluate college players to play in college appear sharper than the eyes of Belichick and Lombardi. Their history evaluating college athletes to play in the NFL hasn’t translated so far.
Apparently, there is a difference.
Kiffin and Glasscock brought in 24 transfers for 2025 to round out a roster of players recruited out of high schools. Now they’re playing LSU for the SEC lead.
PHOTO: Ferris State coach Tony Annese celebrating with his players and Trinidad Chambliss (4).
Belichick and Lombardi brought in 70 players and the Tar Heels are struggling against a softer schedule than Ole Miss has played. Their wins were unimpressive against Charlotte and Richmond, and their losses were one-sided against TCU and Central Florida. Charlotte is a one-win Group of 5 school and Richmond a Football Championship Subdivision member.
Ole Miss has played the tougher schedule. They opened with a rout of Georgia State, a Group of Five school, won back-to-back conference games against Kentucky and Arkansas and a defeated then-unbeaten Tulane of the Group of Five.
Simmons led Mississippi (I’m deliberately avoiding using the school’s mascot nickname hailing traitors) to wins in the first two games. But his three touchdown passes with four interceptions appear to be telling now that he’s healthy but not starting.
Chambliss came off the bench to finish the Arkansas game, a 41-35 victory. He finished 21-of-29 for 353 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions and ran 15 times for 62 yards and two scores.
He started the Tulane game and finished 17-of-27 for 307 yards and two touchdowns without an interception and carried 14 times for 112 yards. He was only the fourth Ole Miss quarterback with a 300/100 game. One of them is College Football Hall of Famer Archie Manning. In another irony, Texas quarterback Arch Manning, Archie’s grandson, is under scrutiny with his struggling moments.
But let’s also give credit to Annese, Ferris State’s 13th-year head coach. Maybe he, like Kiffin, knows more than Belichick about evaluating college potential. Chambliss came to Ferris as a 172-pound kid from Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern. Ole Miss lists him as a 6-foot, 200-pounder.
Annese’s teams have won three of the last four NCAA DII titles and played in four of the last six championship games. Ferris won titles in 2024, 2022, 2021 and was the runner-up in 2018 (there was no championship game in 2020).
Ferris quarterback Jason Vander Laan was a two-time winner of the Harlon Hill Trophy (2014 and 2015), the Heisman Trophy of Division II football.
Annese also resurrected the career of quarterback Jayru Campbell, who lost his scholarship to Michigan State out of Detroit Cass Tech. Campbell was convicted of assaulting a school police officer in 2014, but Annese gave him a chance to rebuild his life. He was a Harlon Hill finalist on the 2018 team that lost in the DII final.
Ferris also has been turning out NFL talent, with three alums on 2025 NFL rosters: cornerback Tavierre Thomas, Minnesota Vikings; linebacker Caleb Murphy, Los Angeles Chargers; and defensive tackle Zach Seiler (Miami Dolphins). Seiler was the Dolphins’ MVP in 2024 and signed a three-year contract extension worth $64 million.
One big-time name in college football who may not be surprised by Chambliss’ jump from Division II to the SEC is the coach of Mississippi’s opponent, LSU’s Brian Kelly.
Kelly won back-to-back DII titles at Grand Valley State in 2002 and 2003. Grand Valley, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Ferris, located 57 miles north in Big Rapids, are fierce rivals in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
Kelly knows the talent to come out of those schools.
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I’ll put my facts on the true pioneers of college football integration versus Bear Bryant fairytales against anybody, anytime, anywhere. Watch here.
Click here for my story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and Segregation and Alabama.
— Tom Shanahan is an award-winning sportswriter with two books on college football integration, “RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans,” and “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s.” They are the most accurate accounts of college football integration in the 1950s and 1960s. They also debunk myths about the 1970 USC-Alabama game. The false narrative co-opted the stories of the true pioneers who stood up to Jim Crow and the KKK.
— Two children’s books also explain Michigan State College Football Hall of Fame coach Duffy Daugherty’s impact on integration through the Underground Railroad and the Hawaiian Pipeline: “DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD” and “HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP.”
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PURCHASE LINKS, non-fiction books
— RAYE OF LIGHT, August Publications or on Amazon.
— THE RIGHT THING TO DO, August Publications or on Amazon.
PURCHASE LINKS, children’s books
— DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, Order from Barnes and Noble here and Amazon here.
— HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP, coming soon on Barnes and Noble and Amazon.
