We are down to four teams left in the college football season, with a pair of blockbuster College Football Playoff semifinals on the docket. Miami and Ole Miss will get things underway on Thursday night at the Fiesta Bowl with a spot in the national title game on the line.
This matchup is an unexpected one after both the Hurricanes and the Rebels pulled off big upsets in the quarterfinals. When the CFP bracket was released, many fans expected to see No. 2 Ohio State and No. 3 Georgia at this stage, but both powerhouses were sent packing.
No. 10 Miami's defense dominated Ohio State, riding the momentum of a Keionte Scott pick-six in the first half to get a 24-14 win in the Cotton Bowl. The next night, Trinidad Chambliss put on a CFP performance for the ages in an upset of Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.
Only one of these great stories can make it out of this game, and the matchup when Ole Miss has the ball pits two of the hottest units in the country against each other. Who has the edge?
Trinidad Chambliss is the hottest player in college football
Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss has been an excellent signal-caller for the Rebels all season. The Division II transfer finished eighth overall in the Heisman Trophy voting, scoring 24 total touchdowns in the regular season after taking over for Austin Simmons early in the year.
In the College Football Playoff, Chambliss has taken it to the next level. He has without question been the best individual player on any team through two rounds, and him catching fire in the second half of Ole Miss' Sugar Bowl win over Georgia is a big reason the Rebels are here with a chance to make it to the national title game.
In the CFP, Chambliss has racked up 694 total yards and five touchdowns in wins over Tulane and Georgia. Not only has he excelled throwing the ball from the pocket, but his elite playmaking ability was on full display in both wins. In the second half against Georgia, he put together one of the best three-play sequences from a quarterback you'll ever see.
The playmaking instincts of Trinidad Chambliss are ridiculous.
This 3-play sequence sums it up. pic.twitter.com/scveD6uOFc
— Dane Brugler (@dpbrugler) January 2, 2026
From a schematic standpoint, it's very hard to slap a true scouting report on this Ole Miss team because of the departure of Lane Kiffin. In the regular season, Chambliss had nearly an equal number of dropbacks from play action as he did without it, and Ole Miss has kept it that way in the two playoff games. However, one key thing has changed.
When Chambliss throws the ball on non-play action plays, his average depth of target is just 6.7 yards. However, when he does use play action, he is throwing the ball more than 11 yards downfield on average. The offense under Charlie Weis Jr. is hunting more explosive plays out of play action looks, and it is connecting.
On those play action plays, Chambliss is 16-for-21 with 219 yards and a touchdown in the last two games, according to PFF. That is an incredibly efficient clip, one that Miami will have to slow down on Thursday night. Ole Miss sets up the play action by using Chambliss and star running back Kewan Lacy in the run game, which sets up those explosive plays.
One other area where Chambliss has been excellent all season is under pressure. You saw his ability to escape the rush and make plays downfield in the clip above, and he has been driving defensive coordinators crazy with plays like that all season long. For the season, Chambliss had only one turnover-worthy play under pressure on 94 pressured dropbacks according to PFF. In the playoffs, he has been pressured eight times and completed five passes for 87 yards without taking a sack.
Miami excels at getting after the quarterback, but if it can't get Chambliss on the ground, it will be a long night for Mario Cristobal and company.
Miami's defensive line has dominated the CFP
Ole Miss has protected Chambliss well all season long, including in the two CFP games, and has been able to run the ball well against just about everyone. However, the Rebels haven't seen anything like this Miami front yet.
Simply put, the defensive line of the Hurricanes is the No. 1 reason why Miami has made it through both Texas A&M and Ohio State to get to this semifinal game. If Chambliss has been the best individual player in the playoff, Miami's defensive front has been by far the best position group.
The Hurricanes have completely shut down both Texas A&M and Ohio State, two offenses which can be very explosive if you're not winning at the line of scrimmage. In those two games, Miami has only given up 134 yards on 59 carries, an astronomically inefficient number for those two offenses.
That has given the Hurricanes chance after chance to get after the quarterback, and they have done just that. Texas A&M quarterback Marcel Reed was pressured on 18 of 52 dropbacks and sacked six times. In the quarterfinals, Miami pressured Julian Sayin on 17 of his 40 dropbacks and sacked him five times. On those 35 plays where the Hurricanes got pressure on the quarterback, Miami allowed only 80 passing yards according to PFF.
What is even more impressive is what Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor, Miami's two superstar defensive ends, did those games. In College Station, Mesidor recorded an incredible 11 pressures and a sack, while Bain pressured Reed eight times and finished with three sacks. Against the Buckeyes, Bain got eight pressures and a sack, while Mesidor hurried Sayin six times with two sacks to his name.
Of course, recording similar numbers is going to be very difficult against an Ole Miss offense that runs a lot of RPOs, is better at running the football than either of those first two opponents and is overall playing much better as an offense. Chambliss will be able to escape the pressure in a way that Sayin was not able to, but he is also much better at playing on time than someone like Reed.
Regardless, the game will likely hinge on this battle. If Ole Miss can keep Chambliss clean, the Ole Miss offense is just too explosive to be held down for an entire game. However, Miami is more than capable of wreaking havoc once again to punch its ticket to the national title game.
