Dissecting the Indiana-Miami National Championship headset communications snafu
· Yahoo Sports
Well, would you look at that. We’ve got an excuse to talk about Indiana football’s 27-21 win over Miami in the College Football Playoff Championship Game some eight months removed from the event.
Don’t mind if we do.
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You’ve almost certainly heard tell of it by now but here’s the basics: headset communications went down for both Indiana and Miami during the game’s fourth quarter as a security precaution with President Donald Trump exiting the stadium. This wasn’t widely known at the time but is now due to Trump’s upcoming attendance at the game between No. 1 Texas and No. 14 Tennessee at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville.
It’s known because Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, asked about any logistical challenges tied to Trump’s attendance during a press conference, made note of communications disruptions and shared the following anecdote.
“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 that game, they had no communications because he [Trump] was leaving early before the game ended and so, you get no warning, it just cuts out.”
This, of course, became news just about immediately. The drive Sarkisian seems to be referring to is Miami’s last of the game when quarterback Carson Beck threw a pass that was intercepted by Indiana cornerback Jamari Sharpe, a moment that all but sealed the game for the Hoosiers.
As the quote spread and others picked it up, Curt Cignetti caught wind of it as he was filming his weekly radio show. He addressed the news, via a clip posted by the Kirkwood & Dunn Podcast.
“Okay, so there’s something spreading like wildfire on social media, right?” Cignetti said. “That, when the president leaves, communication devices go out, the headsets. And that’s a fact, that happens. When President Trump left the game around the seven minute mark of the fourth quarter there were two or three plays, we were on defense, we couldn’t hear at all. And the second play was when they gave the ball to [Malachi] Toney, pitched it to him on the fly sweep, for the touchdown with six thirty-seven to go. Well, what’s floating around on social media is that the communication device went down on Miami’s last drive of the game on offense. Yeah, so, I had to dispel that. And these are just facts, they’re facts. And the communication device came back right after the touchdown and we had no problem, either side, we had no problem the rest of the game.”
“So, what do we got?” replied Don Fischer, voice of the Hoosiers.
“We got a bunch of BS, that’s what we got,” Cignetti said with a grin to laughter from the crowd.
Prior to Cignetti’s radio show, reporting from ESPN’s Pete Thamel directly quoted Cignetti telling a similar story while separate reporting from NBC Sports’ Nicole Auerbach backed Cignetti’s telling. Marc Caputo, who covers the White House for Axios and is a Miami fan, cites the official pool report from the night that indicates Trump’s departure began with around eight minutes left on the clock at 10:47 p.m. with his airport arrival occurring at 10:54 p.m. Beck’s interception on Miami’s final drive occurred at 11:15 p.m., long after Trump’s departure.
So, there’s all that.
For what it’s worth, on our end, if this was anything it would’ve come out far, far sooner than several months later. Perhaps Sarkisian mistook which drive the communications disruption occurred on, since the widely reported disruption also happened when Miami was on offense.
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