{"id":7379,"date":"2025-11-11T21:29:41","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T21:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/11\/11\/what-trump-said-on-pat-mcafee-show-president-talks-nil-nick-saban-nfl-kickoff-rule-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T21:29:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T21:29:41","slug":"what-trump-said-on-pat-mcafee-show-president-talks-nil-nick-saban-nfl-kickoff-rule-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/11\/11\/what-trump-said-on-pat-mcafee-show-president-talks-nil-nick-saban-nfl-kickoff-rule-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"What Trump said on Pat McAfee Show: President talks NIL, Nick Saban, NFL kickoff rule – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"
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United States President Donald Trump<\/a> called in to “The Pat McAfee Show” during a Veterans Day broadcast Tuesday, Nov. 11, and the country’s most powerful sports fan weighed in on a bevy of topics.<\/p>\n

In a wide-ranging interview, Trump spoke about former Alabama<\/a> coach Nick Saban and the future of college sports in the NIL era, NFL’s kickoff rule, the Ryder Cup and the World Cup, among other topics. Here’s some highlights from Trump’s appearance.<\/p>\n

<\/a> Listen to Trump on Pat McAfee<\/h2>\n

“I’m only joining you because I hear you say such nice things about me from your very large audience,” Trump said to McAfee to start the interview at about the 1:09:30 mark. “I’ve always heard you’ve said such nice things. When people say nice about me, I join. When they don’t say nice about me, I take a pass.”<\/p>\n

<\/a> Trump dishes on Nick Saban, NIL era of college sports<\/h2>\n

“He won a lot and I got to know him, and he\u2019s a fantastic guy, and he\u2019s somebody they should really get involved in college sports in terms of making sure it all works out because what\u2019s happening is it looks like it\u2019s not working out too well for colleges, for most of the people, and a lot of the lesser sports are being totally terminated. You know that. It\u2019s a shame. It was almost like a training ground for the Olympics and a lot of those training grounds are being lost and Nick knows this stuff better than anybody. He\u2019s really active in it and I think they ought to let Nick Saban take a good, strong look at it. I can tell you, from my standpoint, I listen to what he has to say.<\/p>\n

“Well, it is a very serious problem because even football where they give quarterbacks $12 million, $13-$14 million \u2026 all of a sudden you\u2019re going to be out of control. And even rich colleges are going to go bust because you\u2019re not going to be able to do this. And you know they had the old way, they gave scholarships, they did lots of good things, but there could be some form of payment. But when they start bidding up the costs, look the NFL and all the leagues have caps. You don\u2019t really have that in college sports, and when the guard comes along that ways 350 pounds and he\u2019s phenomenal and they say it\u2019s the difference between having a great team and a lousy team, they gave him $10 million, that\u2019s going to start happening pretty soon. All of a sudden you\u2019re going to have like NFL-type payrolls.<\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t care how rich the colleges are, you don\u2019t make that much money, even the most successful. They\u2019re not going to be able to do this. Bad things are going to happen unless we figure this out. That\u2019s why a guy like Nick Saban, now I\u2019ve worked with Nick, but a guy like Nick Saban and some others getting together because they\u2019re going to have to do something. Colleges can\u2019t afford it. And what they\u2019re doing, I don\u2019t want to use any particular sport because it\u2019s degrading, but they are really terminating a lot of sports, you know, sports you would call them lesser sports. But big sports, good sports. Sports where there have tremendous interest, they\u2019re getting rid of them, and frankly the college football is very big, but as big as it is, if they don\u2019t do some very powerful caps, these colleges are all going to go out of business no matter how rich they are.”<\/p>\n

<\/a> Trump mentions Washington NFL team name debate<\/h2>\n

Trump wasn’t asked specifically about his desire to have the Washington Commanders<\/a> change their name, but did mention it in passing while discussing his recent appearance at the Commanders’ Week 10 loss to the Detroit Lions.<\/p>\n

“The Commanders as opposed to the Redskins. What happened to the Redskins, by the way?” Trump said while answering a question about whether he speaks with world leaders about sports.<\/p>\n

<\/a> Trump on United States Ryder Cup loss to Europe<\/h2>\n

“The other team, they really sank a lot of putts. You\u2019re looking and they\u2019re sinking 30-footers, 40-footers, 70-footer, and just one after another, and it was interesting. It looked like it was over and then Sunday, it really, they almost came back. You have to give a big hoot to an opponent who dropped about a six foot putt. That was a big putt, that final putt. It was a big putt. But that was very close. Look, I think they sank, they putted unbelievably, really they were unconscious with it. I really believe that that was unusual because I\u2019ve never seen so many long putts go in before. I don\u2019t think, generally speaking, that would happen. We actually, our team actually hit the ball a little bit better, hit more fairways. If the rough were longer … it might have been a little bit different. But look, they\u2019re all great players. I know so many of them from both sides and they are just very talented people.”<\/p>\n

<\/a> Trump calls NFL kickoff rule ‘demeaning’<\/h2>\n

“I hate the kickoff in (NFL) football. I think it\u2019s so terrible. I think it\u2019s so demeaning. I think it hurts the game, I think it hurts the game, it hurts the pageantry. I\u2019ve told that to Roger Goodell, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s any safer. You saw those guys crashing into each other. It\u2019s the opposite of what the game, the ball is in the air and nobody is moving. It\u2019s supposed to be when the ball is in the air, when the ball is played, you\u2019re supposed to move. If you walk in, and the pageantry of the game is so badly hurt, and I don\u2019t think the NFL \u2013 they do what they want. I don\u2019t think they\u2019ll change. But I hope college football doesn\u2019t change because the power of the kickoff was so beautiful and now, I don\u2019t want to say what it reminds me of because I\u2019ll get myself into big trouble. But it is not football.\u201d<\/p>\n

“It was so good and now it’s so bad. It’s so unromantic. It just is demeaning to football. I don’t think they have a right to do that to the game. You know, the game is so important. I don’t think the people that approved that, I don’t think anybody has the right to do that to the game, and I hope college doesn’t change. I hope that some day the NFL will stop it and go back to football.”<\/p>\n

This story will be updated<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

United States President Donald Trump called in to “The Pat McAfee Show” during a Veterans Day broadcast Tuesday, Nov. 11, and the country’s most powerful sports fan weighed in on a bevy of topics. In a wide-ranging interview, Trump spoke about former Alabama coach Nick Saban and the future of college sports in the NIL […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}