GLENDALE, Ariz. – Trinidad Chambliss’s last-gasp pass into the end zone, intended for De’Zhaun Stribling, had fallen incomplete. Despite several tugs of Stribling’s jersey and significant contact from a Miami defender, pass interference was not called. The State Farm Stadium scoreboard at the Fiesta Bowl showed Miami with 31 points, Ole Miss with 27. The clock showed all zeroes.
This crazy, often magical 2025 Ole Miss football season finally ended Thursday, eight days into 2026 and one victory short of playing in the national championship game. Many of the Rebel players stared at the scoreboard almost as if in disbelief. Several shed tears while embracing one another. Across the field, Miami players celebrated wildly. Some of them were crying tears of joy. This game dripped drama.
A few minutes later, quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and running back Kewan Lacy trudged off the field together, Chambliss with a towel over his head, Lacy with his arm draped over Chambliss’s shoulder.
There, to greet them in the tunnel leading to the Ole Miss locker room, was former Miami superstar and Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Lewis. Lewis had witnessed the effort the Rebels duo had put forth. Chambliss threw for 277 yards and a touchdown. Lacy, after missing time with a tweaked hamstring and then playing despite it, ran for 103 yards and another touchdown.
Lewis is one of the greatest competitors in football history and knows valor and grit when he sees it. That’s why he was outside Ole Miss’s locker room and not inside Miami’s. He wanted to console the two Rebel offensive stars who had displayed remarkable effort and grit galore. Onlookers couldn’t hear what Lewis said, but we could see he meant it.
Moments later, Lacy, Chambliss and the rest of the Rebels made their way into the locker room where Pete Golding, their head coach, greeted each and every one of them, some with handshakes, some with bear hugs. Golding appeared totally drained, bleary-eyed, exhausted. His Rebels had fought so valiantly, especially after being dominated early in the game when Miami kept the ball for 20 of the game’s first 23 minutes and held Ole Miss to a negative one yard of total offense in the first quarter.
And so Miami will go on to play for the national championship just a few miles from its campus. Ole Miss will begin to build for next year. Lacy will be back for the Rebels. Chambliss hopes to be. Many more of the Rebels who made this the longest and most memorable season in Ole Miss history will be back for another run, having shown, even in Thursday night’s defeat, they belonged on the national stage.
“I can’t tell you how proud I am of this group,” Golding would say in the post-game press conference. “They never flinched, they never panicked … This group created a legacy and an expectation for this program. We didn’t play our best and we didn’t coach our best, but I couldn’t ask any more in terms of effort. … Effort has never been an issue with these guys.”
Anyone who watched the game, no matter your allegiance, knows that, at least on this night, the better team won. Indeed, the bigger, stronger team won, often dominating the line of scrimmage. The Hurricanes possessed the ball for more than 41 of the game’s 60 minutes. Miami ran a whopping 88 plays, compared to just 60 plays for the Rebels.
Miami won the game on third and fourth downs. Ole Miss converted just two of 10 third down plays. Miami converted 11 of 19 third downs and two of two fourth down gambles. The Ole Miss defense just could not get off the field.
Still, Ole Miss, displaying the same doggedness that won the Sugar Bowl over Georgia seven days earlier, stayed in the game. Even when Miami scored the go-ahead touchdown on Carson Beck’s three-yard scramble with 18 seconds remaining, Ole Miss fired back.
Chambliss hit Cayden Lee with a 23-yard strike to near midfield. Thirteen seconds remained. After an incompletion, Chambliss completed a 17-yard laser to Stribling. That left time for one heave to the end zone. Could Chambliss, the miracle worker, do it again? At this point, would anyone have been surprised? Stribling was the target in the left corner of the end zone with heavy coverage from two Miami defenders. There were tugs of Stribling’s jersey. There was contact. There was no flag.
Could have been called. Wasn’t.
“That play did not lose us the game,” Golding would say.
The truth is: Miami, a talented, red-hot team playing its best football when it mattered most, won the game more than Ole Miss lost it.
Beck, a 23-year-old millionaire, played almost flawlessly, throwing for 268 yards and two touchdowns and running in the game-winner. Bruising running back Mark Fletcher slammed into the line over and over, 22 times for 133 yards, often pushing the pile. Wide receiver Malachi Toney, a marvelously talented, just turned 18-year-old freshman, caught five balls for 81 yards and turned an at-first-harmless-looking quick screen into a highlight reel, 36-yard touchdown dash. Malachi Toney, remember that name. You will be hearing it for years.
Yes, and 6-foot-9 inch, 345-pound Miami left tackle Markell Bell of Cleveland, Mississippi, and Holmes Community College anchored a massive, often dominant Miami offensive line. Miami has now played 15 games. Bell has yet to give up a sack.
So, Ole Miss didn’t lose, so much as Miami won. The Rebels were heroic even in defeat. The team that lost its head coach just as preparations for the playoffs began never surrendered.
Said Golding, when asked about his team’s legacy, “I’ll just remember how they embraced one another. There’s been a lot happen over the last month to where somebody could have not been a good dude. Somebody could have not worked hard. Somebody could have not showed up on time. I can’t recall a single issue. That’s who they are. They just went to work and made sure everyone around them went to work.”
Golding continued, “But to me, I’ll remember the smiles, man. It’s the memories. It’s the laughs. It’s the camaraderie and how they grew together. They’re going to be talking about this for a long, long time right? Some of it will be about what could have happened and all that, but they’ve made memories in that locker room that will last a lifetime.”
Yes, they have. And those of us lucky enough to have witnessed it won’t forget it any time soon.
Rick Cleveland is a sports columnist for Mississippi Today. A Hattiesburg native, he has covered Mississippi sports for nearly six decades and is a member of both the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and the Mississippi Press Association Hall of Fame.
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