Indiana coach Curt Cignetti pushed back hard Thursday night on the idea that Miami lost communication on its final offensive drive in the College Football Playoff title game, saying the issue happened earlier and only briefly on defense.
Cignetti said the disruption came when President Donald Trump left Hard Rock Stadium around the 7-minute mark of the fourth quarter, a departure that shut down communication in the stadium. On Don Fischer’s radio show, Cignetti said Indiana was on defense for “two or three plays” at that point and could not hear anything.
“And the second play was when they gave the ball to (Malachi) Toney, and they pitched it to him for the touchdown with 6:37 to go,” Cignetti said.
The conversation surfaced again because Trump is attending the Tennessee game this weekend, which has sparked discussion about the challenges tied to his presence in a stadium.
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian added to that discussion Thursday on the Longhorn Network, saying he had heard from Miami coach Mario Cristobal about the way communication shut off during the championship game.
“A good friend of mine is Mario Cristobal,” Sarkisian said. “Last year, when they were playing Indiana in the national championship, they had that drive at the end of the game; they had no communications because he was leaving early before the game ended.
You get no warning; it just cuts out. You have to be prepared for that.”
Cignetti said he heard Sarkisian’s account and wanted to correct it.
“So what’ve we got?” Fisher asked.
“We’ve got a bunch of BS, that’s what we’ve got,” Cignetti said.
Cignetti then made clear what he believed happened.
“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,” Cignetti said.
“The communication device came back right after the (Toney) touchdown. We had no problem the rest of the game.”
CBS Sports corroborated Cignetti’s claim that the communication loss did not happen on the final drive of the game.
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