Trinidad Chambliss Analysis

Zach Smith · 2026-08-31T23:45:41+00:00

I Picked the Wrong Georgia Game Trinidad Chambliss threw three interceptions in 2025. Three. He also posted the best under-pressure grade of any quarterback I studied, and fifteen batted balls that prove the exact flaw I called out. Starting with a confession. By Zach Smith When I broke down Trinidad Chambliss I made a decision on purpose. I took the regular season game at Georgia instead of the playoff, because playoff games come with a month of prep and I wanted to see what he was on a normal Saturday between the hedges. That game graded a 54.2 offense and a 46.4 passing. Second-worst game of his season. He went back to Athens later that year and put up a 91.8. Best game he played all year. Thirty of forty-six for 362. Same stadium, same defense. So when I said his ceiling was an A minus and handed him a B? The ceiling wasn't theoretical. He hit it three months later against the same people. I'd rather say that out loud than act like I nailed it. So let's do the year. Three picks. Four hundred forty-eight throws. Twenty-two touchdowns, three interceptions, 3,934 yards at 8.8 a throw, 193 first downs. Thirteen turnover-worthy plays all season, a 2.5% rate. Second-best in this series behind Julian Sayin's 1.4% and better than Mensah at 3.6%, Carr at 3.2% and Hoover at 4.4%. Split it and it gets stupid: Zero interceptions when blitzed, on 194 attempts, with fourteen touchdowns. Zero interceptions under pressure, on eighty-one attempts. All three of his picks came in clean pockets against a standard rush. You cannot rattle this kid into a giveaway. 76.1 That's his offensive grade when the pocket broke down, and it stopped me cold. The rest of the field: Sayin 67.1. Arch Manning 63.5. Hoover 51.1. CJ Carr 48.7. Dante Moore 47.2. Darian Mensah 47.1. He's nine points clear of second and nearly thirty clear of the guy I called the best quarterback in college football. Every other passer I studied falls off a cliff when protection fails. Chambliss doesn't. Twenty-four scrambles. A 74.9 rushing grade, second only to Arch. An 82.7 rushing grade specifically under pressure. When it breaks, he goes and does something about it. Third and seven in the red zone, max pressure coming, everybody covered. He steps up, takes off, gets in the end zone. Third and four, he sheds an arm tackle and finds just enough to reach the sticks. That wasn't even designed. That was a scramble. The gamer thing I kept saying on the broadcast isn't a vibe. It's the most distinctive number he has. Stop playing off coverage against this guy He's got one of the quickest releases I have seen and he throws it hard. Twenty-plus: 55 attempts, 987 yards, 17.9 a throw, a 95.7 grade, twenty-five big-time throws at a 37.3% rate. Only Dante Moore graded better deep. On the year he had twenty-nine big-time throws at 6.1%. The 48-yard laser he drove to the two to tie it before halftime is what that looks like. Not a floaty deep ball you camp under. A drilled one that isn't in the air long enough for anybody to recover. Then he flipped the ball to the ref and found the laces like it was nothing. And my actual coaching advice for anybody on the Ole Miss schedule stands. Do not give this man a cushion. Georgia played him with a bail corner and he completed hitches all afternoon. Free eight yards. Free ten. On one of them he caught it, made the corner miss and took it to the crib. Fifteen batted balls I said on that tape the ball nosedives on him. That his hand gets on the side of it and comes across instead of getting on top. That his release point is low and he never gets over the ball. Trinidad Chambliss had fifteen batted balls in 2025. Most of anybody in this series and it's not close. Arch had ten. Moore eight. Mensah seven. Carr four. Hoover three. Sayin two. And all fifteen came when he was kept clean. Zero under pressure. That's not a collapsing pocket crowding his lane. That's a release point. Fifteen separate times, clean pocket, clear window, and he put the ball on a path a 300-pound man could reach out and touch. The short game says the same thing. Zero to nine yards, which is 40.2% of his attempts, he completed 77.2% and graded a 67.0. His worst area by a mile. High completion, low grade, which is exactly what it looks like when balls arrive low, behind, and with no touch on them. He completes them. They aren't good throws. Add the back shoulder problem, which I charted three or four misses on in one game, and you've got him. Best throw on his sheet is elite. The routine ones leak. Fair is fair about that tape Nineteen of thirty-six. 52.8%. 263 yards, one touchdown, no picks. A 54.2 offensive grade. I gave it a B and the number says I was generous. I weighted the highlights, the grade weighted the misses, and we were both looking at the same thing. I said it myself on the broadcast: if not for the nosedives, this kid is an A minus. Nosedives are precisely what a grade punishes. The two-minute drill is where the game got decided. Down eight, two minutes, on the road. Second down, he's got an OTB sitting open right in front of him, and instead of taking it or throwing it away he freaks out with a blitzing back and eats the play. Take it. It's right there. Third down he gets to his backside dig and misses it, feet not set, momentum drifting left. Fourth down gets batted at the line, which now has fourteen friends on his season file. Find the throwing lane. Step up and deliver through the window. That's the most under-coached thing in quarterback play and it ended his afternoon. Around him Ole Miss receivers could not separate from Georgia's corners, and the routes were part of why. There's a shot play late where a kid sticks his left foot in the ground with no triple release and the corner knew where he was going before he did. Season-long, seventeen drops at 5.5%, and Chambliss adjusted out to 75.1% from a raw 65.6%. They can't block either. There's a speed option that loses a yard because a receiver runs straight at the defender, closes the entire cushion, and never breaks down. Push off, nose up, four yards, break down, shuffle your feet. That's the whole technique. I'm a receiver guy. That's inexcusable. On scheme: Lane Kiffin runs a ton of RPOs, screens, dinks and dunks, and one beautiful fake-look-back snap where he gets the whole Georgia defense to turn their heads before the ball is snapped. LSU fans, that's your preview. I still don't understand condensing four receivers into the boundary the way he does. It drags every defender to one side and then nobody attacks the space it makes. Kiwan Lacey is a problem, though. Watch him cut back on the soft shoulder and run through arm tackles. Where I land I gave that tape a B and called his ceiling an A minus. I'll stand on the ceiling and raise my confidence in the player. Season grade of 87.8 offense, 83.7 passing. Third in this series behind Sayin at 92.9 and Moore at 90.2, ahead of Carr, Mensah and Hoover. Three picks in 448 throws. Best under-pressure grade of anybody I studied. A 95.7 deep. What's holding him back is a list a good quarterback coach fixes in one spring. Get on top of the ball. Quit putting throws on a path a defensive tackle can reach. Learn a back shoulder. Find some touch on the short stuff. He's not a great athlete. Not fast, not twitchy, and he isn't pulling away from a defensive end. But he uses everything he has better than anybody in this class, he runs like JT Barrett with maybe a step more, and he's a tough son of a bitch who lowers his shoulder for the extra yard. Fix the release and he's a problem for everybody. He's already a stud. He's just not finished, and the 91.8 he put up back in Athens is what finished looks like.