First, Trinidad Chambliss and Kewan Lacy took over New York’s Time Square. Now, the Ole Miss duo is taking over Las Vegas.
Ole Miss announced the next part of its Heisman campaign for Chambliss and Lacy. The Sphere in downtown Las Vegas will showcase digital images of Chambliss and Lacy throughout Sunday.
Putting #H6I5MEN on the world's largest LED screen 🪩
Starting today at 11 AM CST/9AM PST pic.twitter.com/hiI3xbky3W
— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) August 30, 2026
The Las Vegas Sphere is a noticeable attraction thanks in large part to its 580,000-square-foot LED exterior, making it the largest digital display in the world. If Heisman campaigning was a poker game, Ole Miss just slid a massive pile of chips into the middle.
Heisman campaigns aren’t new, but what Ole Miss is doing is taking it to a new level. The goal of these campaigns used to be about making sure voters knew how good certain players are. Today the goal is closer to making the player(s) culturally unavoidable.
Chambliss and Lacy are nearing that point and with a week left until the Rebels’ season opener against No. 24 Louisville, the campaign may have more chips to play.
But will it work? Will all of the effort and publicity lead to either Chambliss or Lacy winning the Heisman trophy in December?
Of course the answer is no. Chambliss and Lacy have to win the trophy with what they do on the field. Just because Chambliss and Lacy were looking over New York City doesn’t mean anything. It certainly didn’t help Joey Harrington in 2001 when Oregon purchased a billboard across from Madison Square Garden.
Historically, though, players who have had some form of a Heisman campaign have gone on to win the award a little less than half of the time.
Jayden Daniels at LSU in 2023 won it after the schools’ “That Kid Jayden” campaign. USC’s Caleb Williams won it in 2022 after a “HE13MAN” campaign. Herschel Walker (1982), Ty Detmer (1990), Carson Palmer (2002), Robert Griffin III (2011) and Johnny Manziel (2012) are some other examples of Heisman winners who had notable campaigns before and during the season.
But there are plenty of players who had Heisman campaigns and didn’t win. Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix lost to Daniels. Nix had billboards in New York, Dallas, an ad in New York Times and the nickname “Bo-Dacious.” Penix had a campaign that included Adidas’ direct involvement.
Sam Darnold (2017) and Chase Daniel (2008) weren’t even finalists the year of their Heisman campaigns.
This is just a small sample size, but the trend is obvious. It didn’t matter what the campaign looked like. If the player didn’t play well in games, no amount of time on a Times Square billboard will help.
But if the goal of Heisman campaigns isn’t to persuade voters and instead just insert a player into the conversation, Ole Miss has done just that for Chambliss and Lacy.
And in seven days we’ll know if we’re seeing the end of the campaigns or if this is just the beginning.
