College football fans are pulling their hair out after a head coach revealed how President Donald Trump impacted a championship game.
The head coach of the University of Texas at Austin Longhorns football team, Steve Sarkisian, shared a story on Thursday that suggested that Trump caused a security-related communications blackout during the College Football Playoff national championship in January.
Sarkisian explained that a "good friend" of his is Mario Cristobal, the head coach of the University of Miami football team. Miami faced off with Indiana University in the CFP national championship in January. Indiana won the game 27-21 after Indiana was able to hold off a comeback from Miami, which had the ball at the end of the game.
Trump is planning to attend a game between Texas and the University of Tennessee on Saturday, so Sarkisian explained that he has to prepare for Trump to possibly affect the game, based on what Cristobal told him. Cristobal told him that Trump can cause communications on the field, including between the head coach's headset and the quarterback's helmet, to get cut off.
"If he decides to leave in the game early, your communication gets cut off and shut down," Sarkisian said. "Last year, when [Miami was] playing Indiana in the national championship, they had that drive at the end of that game; they had no communications because [Trump] was leaving."
"WTF!!!?!?" reacted Chuck Todd, the veteran political commentator and former Meet the Press host. "Are you telling me that Trump cost Miami in the final drive? Is that what Sark is saying?"
"You kidding me??" sports writer Alex Donno similarly responded. "They cut off Miami's comms with no warning during the final drive of the title game down 6???"
"A pretty insane story given the timing and stakes," noted sports analyst CJ Vogel.