Trump-claim leads to uproar: “You kidding me?”

Donald Trump probably did not expect to find himself revisiting the final minutes of January’s college football national championship while preparing for another Saturday in the stands.

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian has made that difficult.

Days before Trump is due to attend Texas’ showdown with Tennessee, Sarkisian revealed an unusual security complication that apparently follows the president into football stadiums.

Team communications can temporarily disappear when Trump moves around or leaves.

More intriguingly, Sarkisian says exactly that happened to Miami during its dramatic attempt to steal the national championship from Indiana.

His account immediately prompted a tantalizing question among football followers.

Did Trump’s departure interfere with Miami at the worst possible moment?

Sarkisian drops quite the story

Texas travels to Knoxville on Saturday to face Tennessee with Trump expected inside Neyland Stadium.

Presidential security already means additional planning for spectators and officials. Sarkisian revealed Thursday that coaches have another issue to consider.

Trump’s movements can result in communications being temporarily shut down.

“If he decides to leave in the game early, your communication gets cut off and shut down,” Sarkisian said.

Headsets connecting coaches and coach-to-player communications can be affected, meaning teams need an old-fashioned backup plan ready.

Sarkisian then reached for an example involving his friend Mario Cristobal, Miami’s head coach.

“Last year, when [Miami was] playing Indiana in the national championship, they had that drive at the end of that game; they had no communications because [Trump] was leaving,” Sarkisian said.

Suddenly, a game decided months ago had acquired another storyline.

Miami was six points away from a title

Timing made Sarkisian’s claim particularly explosive.

Indiana defeated Miami 27-21 in January’s College Football Playoff national championship, but the Hurricanes still had an opportunity to win late.

Miami trailed by six and got possession with less than two minutes remaining.

Quarterback Carson Beck moved the Hurricanes into Indiana territory before attempting a deep pass from the Hoosiers’ 41-yard line.

Indiana defensive back Jamari Sharpe intercepted it.

Game over. Championship Indiana.

Sarkisian’s version suggested Miami had been dealing with a communications blackout during that desperate final push because Trump was leaving the stadium.

Football social media did not require much encouragement from there.

Chuck Todd wants an explanation

Former Meet the Press host Chuck Todd reacted with disbelief.

“WTF!!!?!?” Todd wrote.

“Are you telling me that Trump cost Miami in the final drive? Is that what Sark is saying?”

Sports writer Alex Donno had a similar response.

“You kidding me??” Donno wrote.

“They cut off Miami’s comms with no warning during the final drive of the title game down 6???”

Sports analyst CJ Vogel called it “a pretty insane story given the timing and stakes.”

Such reactions capture why Sarkisian’s anecdote exploded so quickly.

They do not, however, establish that Trump’s departure cost Miami anything.

There is a pretty big catch

Further reporting complicates the story.

CBS Sports spoke with three Miami sources who confirmed that presidential security measures caused a brief communications disruption during the fourth quarter.

Their memories of precisely when it happened differed.

Two sources said the outage did not occur during Miami’s final possession, contrary to Sarkisian’s recollection. All three reportedly agreed that communications were lost for only one or two plays and that the interruption did not meaningfully affect Indiana’s victory.

So the most dramatic interpretation — Trump leaves, Miami loses its communications and a national championship slips away — goes considerably further than the available evidence.

Sarkisian relayed what he said Cristobal had told him.

Miami sources confirm the basic phenomenon but dispute the crucial timing.

Trump really can cause communication problems

Questions surrounding the championship story should not obscure the broader point Sarkisian was making.

Presidential visits can interfere with football communications.

Sarkisian knows that from personal experience. He served as Alabama’s offensive coordinator when Trump attended Alabama’s 2019 game against LSU.

Ahead of Saturday’s Texas-Tennessee game, Sarkisian explained that teams have to prepare for communications disappearing whenever the president enters, leaves or changes locations inside a stadium.

“You get no warning,” Sarkisian said.

That creates an unusual problem for coaches accustomed to communicating electronically throughout a game.

Texas now knows to expect it.

Miami apparently learned the same lesson during the biggest game of its season.

This article is made and published by Nicolai H, who may have used AI in the preparation