Did Trump's exit help Indiana win national title? Curt Cignetti says, 'a bunch of BS'
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Did President Donald Trump's appearance at last year's national championship game possibly affect the outcome of Indiana's win over Miami?
According to Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, the Hurricanes' final drive during their 27-21 loss to the Hoosiers at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens occurred with the headsets not working because of the president leaving the stadium.
"In the fourth quarter if he decides to leave early, your communication gets cut off and shuts down," Sarkisian said during a videoconference Sept. 24, two days before his No. 1 Longhorns play at No. 15 Tennessee, a game Trump is expected to attend.
"A good friend of mine is (Miami coach) Mario Cristobal. Last year when they're playing Indiana in the national championship, they had that drive at the end of that game they had no communications because he was leaving early before the game ended. And so you get no warning it just cuts out. And so you got to be prepared for that. That is definitely something that is unique that could come up in this ball game."
Sarkisian's account, though, is refuted by some.
Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti used his radio show to address the communications outage in the national championship game.
On Thursday night, Cignetti walked off the practice field to his director of operations Blake Jackson telling him about a story making the rounds that the Hurricanes lost communication on their headsets on the final drive of the game.
This claim got Cignetti a little fired up as he made his way to his weekly chat with IU broadcaster Don Fischer.
“We got a bunch of BS,” Cignetti said with a laugh.
By the time Cignetti heard about Sarkisian’s comments, the story was “spreading like wildfire” on social media.
CBS Sports spoke to Miami football sources who confirmed Trump's presence impacted communications during the final quarter, but they differed on whether it came on the final drive. Two people CBS sports contacted said the outage did not happen on the final drive.
While Trump did leave the game early, and the communication in the headsets on both sidelines cut out, the rest of Sarkisian's comments missed the mark, according to Cignetti.
“When President Trump left the game around the 7-minute mark in the fourth quarter, there were two or three plays we couldn’t hear at all,” Cignetti said. “The second play was when they gave the ball to (Malachi) Toney, pitched it to him, for the touchdown with 6:37 to go. What’s floating around on social media is, the communication device went down on Miami’s last drive of the game on offense. Oh really? I had to dispel that.”
Miami’s comeback hopes ended with Carson Beck throwing an interception to Jamari Sharpe in the final minute, but Cignetti isn't aware of either team having any communication issues once the President exited the building.
“Communication device came back right after the (Toney’s) touchdown,” Cignetti said. “And we had no problem the rest of the game.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Did Trump's exit help Indiana win national title? Curt Cignetti says, 'a bunch of BS'
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