President Donald Trump’s early departure from the national championship game may have cost IU an touchdown while on defense in the fourth quarter.
The President’s movement within the stadium causes all communication to be shut down, and Indiana coach Curt Cignetti says that happened in the fourth quarter during the College Football Playoff final at Hard Rock Stadium.
“When President Trump left the game around the 7 minute mark of the 4th quarter, there were two or three plays we were on defense, we couldn’t hear at all,” Cignetti told Don Fischer on his radio show Thursday evening. “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.”
Why is Cignetti talking about this three weeks into the 2026 season?
The President is attending the Tennessee game this weekend, and that has generated discussion of the complications that come with his presence in a stadium.
Texas is playing at Tennessee, and its head coach Steve Sarkisian suggested the communication went down at a different point in the championship game.
“A good friend of mine is Mario Cristobal,” Sarkisian told the Longhorn Network on Thursday. Like Cignetti and Sarkisian, Cristobal also worked under Nick Saban at Alabama. “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 heard what Sarkisian said. And on the radio show, Don Fischer asked Cignetti what he thought of Sarkisian’s account of what happened.
“So what’ve we got?” Fisher asked.
“We’ve got a bunch of BS, that’s what we’ve got,” Cignetti said.
“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.”
Multiple Miami sources corroborated with CBS Sports Cignetti’s claim the communication loss did not happen on the final drive of the game.
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