Kansas City Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes appeared to set the record straight Thursday about his relationship with Sen. Tommy Tuberville.
Or lack thereof.
This has become a growing issue this week as Mahomes prepares for his third straight Super Bowl on Sunday in New Orleans.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump praised Tuberville, his Republican ally, as a “great coach.’ Then Trump related a story that made it sound like Tuberville was Mahomes’ coach in college, at Texas Tech, despite the fact Tuberville wasn’t.
Tuberville twice this week also claimed to have recruited Mahomes to Texas Tech, even if he never coached him. He even said he got to be “very good friends with him.” But Mahomes said Thursday he doesn’t even remember meeting Tuberville.
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“He did not recruit me at the time,” Mahomes said after being asked about it in a news conference. “So, I don’t remember if I ever got to meet him or not.”
This is not the first time Tommy Tuberville has claimed this
Is Tuberville making this up or mixed up? Why would he lie if he knew Mahomes might dispute him? Or could it be that Mahomes doesn’t remember some brief encounter with Tuberville that could be described as ‘recruiting’ him more than 12 years ago?
This is not a new controversy, either. Two years ago, Tuberville claimed in an interview that he recruited Mahomes at Tech. This claim was disputed then, too, by the Cover 3 college football podcast, which broke down why it appeared to be “B.S.”
What exactly happened with Tommy Tuberville and Patrick Mahomes?
Tuberville left his job at Texas Tech in December 2012, nearly two years before Mahomes played his first season there in 2014.
Trump still told the following story Wednesday, with Tuberville looking on, at a signing ceremony for an executive order banning transgender student-athletes from women’s sports. Tuberville had supported this ban.
“You know, his quarterback was named Mahomes,” Trump said of Tuberville. “He was a great college coach. 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?”
“Very good,” Tuberville replied.
“Yeah, he was very good,” Trump said. “And he’s a good guy, too.’
On Thursday, Tuberville posted a message on the social media site X that included a video of his appearance Monday on ‘The Megyn Kelly Show.’ Tuberville appeared to be trying to clarify his relationship with Mahomes after Trump’s remarks on Wednesday. He claimed he recruited Mahomes to Tech.
“As a coach, you start recruiting and working with players years before they get to college,” Tuberville wrote on X Thursday. “Patrick Mahomes was one of the best players I ever had the opportunity to recruit and get to know. Looking forward to cheering him on this weekend when I join President Trump at the Super Bowl.”
‘Very good friends with him’
In a separate video he shared of his interview with Kelly (posted by her show on Monday), Kelly also asked Tuberville if he’s rooting for the Chiefs in the Super Bowl “since you used to coach Patrick Mahomes.”
“Well, I never even coached him,” Tuberville told Kelly. “What happened is 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.”
Mahomes refuted this notion Thursday in an interview with reporters, though it’s not clear he’s been following what Tuberville and Trump claimed about him this week. He was simply responding to a question about his relationship with Tuberville.
Tuberville left Texas Tech to become the Cincinnati coach in December 2012. Before Tech, he coached at Auburn in Alabama, where voters elected him to the U.S. Senate in 2020. Meanwhile, Kliff Kingsbury recruited and coached Mahomes at Texas Tech before he parted ways with the program after the 2018 season and moved on to a coaching career in the NFL.
A representative for Tuberville didn’t return a message seeking comment.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com