Curt Cignetti sets the record straight on Steve Sarkisian's story on when the headsets went dark during national title game against Miami

Steve Sarkisian's comments about presidential security and sideline communication took on a life of their own yesterday. Later on in the day, doing a weekly radio spot, Curt Cignetti took the opportunity to correct the narrative around when it happened during the national title game.

Yesterday, we shared Sarkisian explaining how President Trump's visit to Neyland Stadium for Saturday's Texas-Tennessee game will cut headset communication for both teams. In that same conversation, Sarkisian pointed to January's national championship as an example.

"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 [Trump] was leaving early before the game ended. You get no warning. It just cuts out," Sarkisian shared.

The clip spread quickly on social media, with the takeaway that Miami apparently ran its final possession without headsets, at least that's how Cristobal shared with Sark. 

Cignetti addressed that story directly Thursday night, providing his own firsthand experience to debunk that.

"There's something spreading like wildfire on social media, right, that when the president leaves that communication devices go out, the headsets. That's a fact, that happens. And when President Trump left the (national championship) around the seven-minute mark of the fourth quarter, there were two or three plays, we were on defense, where we couldn't hear at all," Cignetti said.

He didn't leave much room for interpretation on the rest of it.

"We've got a bunch of BS, that's what we got."

According to Cignetti, one of the plays run during the blackout was Carson Beck's 22-yard touchdown pass to Malachi Toney with 6:37 remaining, which cut Indiana's lead to 24-21.

"Communication device came back right after the [Toney] touchdown. And we had no problem the rest of the game," Cignetti said.

Miami's final drive came later. Trailing 27-21 with under two minutes to play, the Hurricanes moved into Indiana territory before Beck threw deep on first-and-10 from the Indiana 41, and safety Jamari Sharpe intercepted it to seal the title, per CBS Sports.

CBS Sports also spoke with Miami sources, who confirmed Trump's movement disrupted communication in the fourth quarter. Two of them said the lapse did not happen on the final drive, and all of them said it lasted one or two plays and did not affect the outcome.

Indiana was on defense for every snap of the outage, so the Hoosiers lost their headsets on the same plays Miami did. Their defensive staff was relaying calls without communication while Miami's offense scored.

The win capped a 16-0 season for Indiana at Hard Rock Stadium on Jan. 19, making the Hoosiers the first FBS team to finish 16-0 since Yale in 1894. Cignetti has gone 27-2 in his first two seasons in Bloomington, and Indiana is 3-0 this fall heading into its Big Ten opener against Northwestern tonight.

Meanwhile, Texas and Tennessee will find out Saturday in Knoxville how it goes when the headsets go quiet.

Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.