Steve Sarkisian says President Donald Trump’s movement in the stadium once cut Miami’s communications during a national title game, and he tied that detail to the closing moments of last year’s championship between Indiana and Miami.
Speaking Thursday on the Longhorn Network ahead of Trump’s expected appearance at Saturday’s No. 1 Texas-No.
14 Tennessee game, Sarkisian revisited the 2019 Alabama-LSU matchup in Tuscaloosa, the game LSU won 46-41. He said that when Trump moves around inside the stadium, communication gets shut down - including the headsets coaches use to signal plays.
Then Sarkisian offered an anecdote he said came from a friend and former Alabama staffer, Miami coach Mario Cristobal.
“A good friend of mine is Mario Cristobal,” Sarkisian told the Longhorn Network on Thursday. Cristobal also worked under Nick Saban at Alabama during the 2010s.
“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.”
CBS Sports spoke with three Miami program sources, and they gave different recollections about when the communication issue happened. Multiple Miami football sources said Trump’s movement did affect communication during the fourth quarter, but two of the three sources said it did not happen on the final drive as Sarkisian described.
Those sources also said the outage lasted only a play or two and did not significantly affect the result.
Indiana led 27-21 with less than two minutes left when Miami pushed into Hoosiers territory. On first-and-10 from Indiana’s 41-yard line, quarterback Carson Beck threw deep, and Indiana defensive back Jamari Sharpe came away with the interception that sealed the Hoosiers’ national championship win.
Attempts to reach Miami and Indiana for comment were not immediately returned.
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