Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes had to call a foul on MAGA Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s claims that he recruited him to play at Texas Tech.
The Alabama senator and former college football coach had been talking up his supposed his role in Mahomes’ football career to Donald Trump, who seems to favor the quarterback because his wife Brittany Mahomes expressed support for his candidacy during the election. But according to Mahomes, who clarified their relationship this week—the two may not have even met. Mahomes bluntly told the Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday, “He did not recruit me.”
The news may just come as a disappointment to Trump, who talked up Tuberville’s connection to Mahomes this week. “You know, [Tuberville’s] quarterback was named Mahomes. He was a great coach,” he said Wednesday. “And I said, ‘How good was he?’ He said, ‘You don’t wanna know how good. He made me into a great coach.’ He’s a pretty good quarterback, right? Yeah, he was very good. And he’s a good guy, too.’”
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Tuberville coached at Texas Tech from 2010 to 2012 and Mahomes didn’t play at the school until 2014.
Despite his wife’s social media activity indicating that she “liked” Trump’s policies, Mahomes himself declined to endorse a candidate during the election, opting instead to advise people to “their own research and then make the best decision for them and their family.” He added that that’s “what makes America so great.”
Trump wasn’t put off by the non-answer. He crafted the couple a congratulations post on Truth Social Thursday, as they welcomed their third child. He also thanked “beautiful Brittany Mahomes for so strongly defending me.”
Tuberville decided to keep Trump’s story going on Thursday, claiming he’d recruited Mahomes to Texas Tech during his appearance on right-wing pundit Megyn Kelly’s show.
“I never even coached him,” Tuberville admitted, “I recruited him, and then I left and went to another school. But I’ve got to be very good friends with him. He’s not just a good athlete, he’s a very good example for a lot of our young youth across this country.”
He doubled down when he shared a clip of the appearance on X, writing, “Patrick Mahomes was one of the best players I ever had the opportunity to recruit and get to know.”
However, the football player told The Philadelphia Inquirer, “I don’t remember if I ever got to meet him or not.”
The story has seemed to some social media users an example of the ring-kissing “cult” behavior that plagues the Republican Party, with some positing that Tuberville crafted the fake story to avoid contradicting the president. The result, wrote one user, was Tuberville “humiliating himself.”
The coach who actually recruited Mahomes is current Washington Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, who was head coach at Texas Tech from 2013 to 2018. Mahomes told ESPN in 2022 that Kingsbury was “that first, at least on the college level, coach that believed in me.”
