President Trump's appearance at Miami-Indiana national championship game sparks renewed interest

President Donald Trump's planned appearance at Saturday's game between No. 1 Texas and No. 14 Tennessee revived an unresolved detail from Miami-Indiana's College Football Playoff national championship game.

In an interview this week, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said Secret Service protocol can cut off sideline communication whenever the president moves inside a stadium. Coaches receive no warning when the system goes down. He said the cutoff includes coach-to-coach headsets and the coach-to-player speakers in helmets, and that staffs have to be ready if Trump enters late, leaves early or even changes seats.

Sarkisian also said that his friend Mario Cristobal and the Hurricanes had no communications on their final drive in the national championship game last year because Trump left before the game ended.

But there's a problem with the story: Indiana coach Curt Cignetti says it is not true.

What Steve Sarkisian said

"The one thing that you have to be aware of when the president goes to any game is that anytime he enters the stadium, leaves the stadium or changes locations within the stadium, they cut all communication. So they cut your headsets. They cut the headsets to coaches. They cut headsets for coach-to-player communication. So you have to have a plan for that, if and when it happens, and you get no warning. It just gets cut out. You have to have a plan to adjust if and when he comes in the middle of the first quarter, leaves in the fourth quarter, or decides he's got to use the restroom, whatever that looks like. You've got to be prepared to have no communication for a short amount of time."

Steve Sarkisian

Curt Cignetti is telling a different story

Cignetti told ESPN's Pete Thamel that the headsets in the championship game went out around the 6:45 mark of the fourth quarter, a stretch that included Malachi Toney's TD with 6:37 remaining.

"We couldn't hear (on the TD), then it came back," Cignetti said. "It came back before kickoff. We both had communication from that point on."

On his radio show with Don Fischer, Cignetti put the president's departure around the seven-minute mark and said Indiana was on defense for two or three plays with no audio. He said the second of those plays was Toney's touchdown.

He rejected the idea that Miami lost communication on the possession that ended the game.

"We've got a bunch of BS, that's what we've got," Cignetti said when asked about the version circulating after Sarkisian's comments. "What's floating around on social media is the communication went down on Miami's last drive of the game on offense. So I had to dispel that. The communication device came back right after the (Toney) touchdown. We had no problem the rest of the game."

Quick note: The NCAA has allowed helmet communication since the 2024 season, with one player on each side of the ball wearing a speaker.

Miami fans are not making any excuses

For a moment, Sarkisian's comments took off on social media. The situation surrounding Carson Beck's game-ending interception felt like it got a lot more complicated.

But with Miami actually scoring during the communication outage, and it being in the middle of the fourth quarter for a short time, the news essentially amounts to one big false alarm — and a hope that Trump keeps his movement to a minimum if Texas-Tennessee remains close in the final quarter of play.

All credit deserves to go to Indiana for completing a phenomenal run last season.

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