There’s nothing more American than college football. The two go together like peanut butter and jelly.
That’s something that even US presidents have come to recognize over the years, using the spectacle and machismo of football to rally together support from the American people. The tradition of presidents attending the Army-Navy game to honor the troops has been around since Theodore Roosevelt started it in 1901.
But a more modern development is these seasoned politicians taking their Secret Service brigades into the luxury boxes of college football’s biggest matchups. On a couple occasions, that included visits to Arkansas football games back in the Razorbacks’ 20th century hey-days.
Richard Nixon famously came to Razorback Stadium for No. 2 Arkansas’ “Game of the Century” vs. No. 1 Texas in 1969. Legendary coaches Frank Broyles and Darrell Royal took their undefeated squads into battle, and the Longhorns overcame a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter to win 15-14. The Heartbreak Hogs have been around for a long time, folks.
President Joe Biden has yet to attend a college game since taking office in 2021, but Donald Trump’s marginally surprising return to the White House puts college football and the commander in chief back in conversation – especially with the Longhorns’ move to the SEC reigniting their rivalry with the Hogs.
With that in mind, Razorback offensive tackle Fernando Carmona Jr. and his brother George discussed what would happen if Trump decided to replicate Nixon’s appearance at the Arkansas vs Texas game 55 years ago.
Hog Calling Arkansas vs Texas
On this week’s edition of the Carmona brothers’ Pin & Pull podcast, they broke down the latest in college football, including the Arkansas vs Texas showdown on Saturday. Fernando said he’s excited for the opportunity to take on the No. 3 Longhorns, staking a bold prediction.
“It’s going to happen, man. We’re going to be throwing [horns down] in the middle of the field,” he said. “At the end of the game, we’re going to be storming the field.”
The Razorbacks are 12.5-point underdogs, but they’ve had good luck at home against teams called UT that wear orange this season. So there’s that. Carmona also touched on the history between the two programs in response to Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian’s comments about the rivalry.
“I think the reason why is because all the grandpas who used to watch the game back in the day in the [Southwest Conference] have passed down the hatred of Texas to their grandkids and their grandkids after that,” Carmona said. “And now they’re at Arkansas and they’re like, ‘You know what? Screw Texas. Go Hogs.’”
Donald Trump and Richard Nixon
Couldn’t have said it better myself, Fernando. On the topic of football history, the brothers eventually discussed Nixon’s 1969 appearance in Fayetteville, with George jokingly asking if we might see Trump make the trip.
“He might be a little busy…but this is a huge game,” Fernando replied. “He’s going to be in attendance. I’m calling it now.”
You heard it here first, folks!
George then points out that Nixon made a surprise appearance in the Texas locker room after the game, and that Trump could do the same with Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman’s jukebox blaring “YMCA.” Wouldn’t that be a sight to see. Using Trump’s oh-so-beautiful way with words – because no one has better words! – you can imagine what he’d have to say.
“What do you call him, Tusk? Oh man…that’s beautiful. Such a beautiful beast…but also so vicious and so horrible at the same time! Such a big animal, I walked by his cage and I said, ‘Wow, this guy’s yuge.’”
Alright, enough of that. All jokes aside, there’s actually some historical precedent that sort-of mandates a Trump appearance at an Arkansas game eventually.
Donald Trump Would Make A Not-So-Glorious Trio
Alongside Nixon, Natural State native Bill Clinton has also attended an Arkansas game in the past. In 1997, he made the trip to War Memorial Stadium to watch the Hogs take on Louisiana Tech. So amazingly, the Hogs’ next two opponents are the ones who they’ve had the most special guests in attendance for in the past. The clock’s ticking, Donald!
The string tying Nixon, Clinton and Trump together is the fact that they are the only presidents in the modern era to be impeached or resign from office. The only other president who got pushed out was Andrew Johnson, way back in 1868 before college football existed.
For all the young folks out there, Nixon was impeached and eventually resigned in the fallout of the Watergate scandal. Clinton, on the other hand, was impeached for his sexual misconduct in the White House.
Donal Trump is a step above these crooks as someone who was impeached not once, but twice for corruption and inciting an insurrection. But he didn’t stop there, instead going above and beyond. In between his presidential terms, he was convicted of 34 felony charges concerning fraudulent business practices and found liable in civil court for sexual assault.
Given his alleged recent behavior in Instagram DMs, it should come as no surprise that Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers is a Trump supporter.
But hey, the presidency is a sacred office, right?
So given this, it’s actually almost mandatory for Donald Trump, as a member of the prestigious “Impeached Presidents Club,” to come down to Fayetteville for a game. Becoming the only president besides Grover Cleveland to serve two non-consecutive terms in office will give the convicted felon a second chance at fulfilling his destiny.
It could be a solid political move for him. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, current Arkansas governor and former Trump White House press secretary, has said before that Trump enjoys attending games in the south because they’re “in the heart of Trump country.” Even with Fayetteville being more progressive than the rest of the state, that’s still a true statement.
Former Alabama Band Member Discusses Bar on Booing
Both Trump and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz used big college football games as campaign stops in this year’s election cycle, with Trump attending the Alabama-Georgia game back in September and Walz attending a Michigan game. The former president received big cheers and “USA” chants in Bryant-Denny Stadium in deep-red Alabama.
Trump also visited Tuscaloosa for the highly-touted Alabama vs. LSU game in 2019, receiving a mixed chorus of mostly cheers with some predictable boos. The audience might have been a little slanted though, with a former Alabama band member telling Best of Arkansas Sports that the Million Dollar Band was told they could cheer if they wanted to, but they were not allowed to boo.
Free speech on college campuses, am I right?
In all likelihood, Arkansas has a lot of work to do as a program if it wants to generate a game of a high enough caliber to attract a president. Nixon showed up for the game of the century and Clinton only came because it’s his home state team.
Despite Carmona’s best efforts, Trump will probably leave office after his second term as the only besmirched president to not come to a Razorback game. That right there would make one hell of a trivia question.
Texas Ready for Arkansas, and Visa Versa
Judging by Sarkisian’s fiery comments earlier this week, the Longhorns will be ready to go on Saturday, hungry for a cold serving of revenge after the beatdown they endured in Fayetteville back in 2021. In many ways, that game was the wakeup call Texas needed to “man up” before it came to the SEC. Sure enough, three years later the Longhorns are the highest-ranked SEC team in the country in their first year in the conference.
But according to Carmona, Arkansas has its own ace up the sleeve heading into Saturday morning’s contest – courtesy of the Big 12 experience of offensive line coach Eric Mateos.
“Coach Mateos has played them three times already…back at Baylor. So he already has the film of his techniques against them,” he said. “That’s kind of helped us picture how we want to play our game and how we’re going to attack.”
“You’re going to see a different Arkansas team than you saw two weeks ago. This is a different offense.”
Fans will have to hope Carmona and Mateos’ master plan comes to fruition – and that the defense steps up from their past performances, too – or things could get ugly against a loaded Longhorn squad.
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Greg McElroy breaks down whether Arkansas can pull the upset over Texas:
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