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GOP Senator Got A Visitor’s Welcome During Texas College GameDay Stop

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Ted Cruz
Flckr, by Gage Skidmore

Ted Cruz walked into Austin with a plan to talk college sports rules and got greeted by a Longhorn crowd that treated the Texas senator like the visiting team.

The Republican senator appeared Saturday on ESPN’s College GameDay in his home state, before No. 4 Texas faced No. 1 Ohio State, using the broadcast to promote the Protect College Sports Act.

Fans at the University of Texas quickly made themselves part of the segment.

Boos poured in as Cruz tried to explain why he wants federal limits on NIL, transfers and eligibility, and the crowd eventually broke into repeated chants of “Ted, you suck!”

Cruz kept going over the noise. “As you know well, college sports is an amazing institution… and right now college sports is in chaos,” Cruz said as the crowd jeered.

The legislation puts Cruz alongside Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, in an attempt to impose new rules on a college athletics system reshaped by player movement and NIL money.

One part of the bill would allow athletes a single free transfer through the portal. Another would limit eligibility to five years, ending once a player turns 24.

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The proposal would also keep athletes who have signed professional contracts from returning to college competition, an issue raised as schools such as LSU have attempted to bring NFL players into their systems.

ESPN has supported the measure, and College GameDay personalities Nick Saban and Pat McAfee have also argued for it.

Saban, one of college football’s best-known coaching figures, has appeared in political ads encouraging passage of the bill.

Cruz’s Austin heckling was not the only Texas football moment that spilled into politics.

After the Longhorns defeated Ohio State, Bo French, the Republican nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission, posted an image on X of non-white University of Texas students celebrating the win.

French used the celebration photo to argue that Texas institutions had been overrun by illegal aliens and foreign nationals.

“I heard UT graduation this year looked like this, I didn’t believe it,” French wrote. “The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”

The post brought criticism from other Texas Republicans, including Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and state Rep. Jared Patterson.

Cornyn pointed to French’s spot as the party’s statewide nominee and pressed other Republicans to respond.

“This is the Republican nominee for statewide office. Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance or racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized,” Cornyn wrote.

Cornyn, whose 23-year Senate tenure is ending after a primary loss to Attorney General Ken Paxton, said the party could damage itself by ignoring rhetoric like French’s.

“This is how great political parties self-destruct,” he wrote, calling it “sad.”

Abbott, in a statement to POLITICO, rejected French’s reading of the Longhorns image and cast it instead as a snapshot of Texans rallying around college football.

“That is not my message,” Abbott said. “A selective picture of Longhorn fans celebrating our biggest home victory-ever-actually shows a way that Texans unite. We all support our college football teams.”

Abbott said Texas politics and Texas football both depend on unity.

“The way we win the state is the same way we win football games,” Abbott said. “We unite under the brand of Texas.”

The governor also said that message did not conflict with Texas pursuing strict immigration laws or freezing H1B visas at universities.

Patterson, a Republican state representative from Austin, called the post “racist” and condemned it.

He said the people in the photo were young Texans cheering for their school, not people who should be turned into political targets because of their skin color.

“These are 20-year-old kids cheering for their university – not political props and not targets for racial attacks,” Patterson wrote.

Patterson also noted that the office French is seeking oversees Texas oil and gas, not federal immigration policy.

“Texans deserve Railroad Commissioners focused on the responsibilities of that office – not using a statewide campaign as a platform for racial division,” Patterson wrote.

He said French’s post did not reflect his Christian faith, his conservative principles or the Republican Party he supports.

“We should be willing to call racism wrong no matter who says it, what party they belong to or how politically inconvenient it may be,” Patterson wrote. “This is wrong and I want no part of it.”

At the GOP midterm convention in Texas, another piece of Texas sports business became a stage line when President Trump revisited the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Dončić trade.

Trump spoke Wednesday in the same arena where Dončić had played for Dallas before the 2025 deal sent him to the L.A. Lakers.

The New York Post noted that Dončić had helped the Mavericks reach the 2024 NBA Finals before Dallas traded him.

Trump told the convention crowd the move still baffled him.

“I must tell you, I don’t understand the trade. That trade is not good,” Trump said.

He joked that the deal needed another round of negotiations.

“Maybe we could redo that trade,” Trump said. “I redo deals all the time. … I understand deals. But that one, I didn’t quite get.”

Dončić’s exit stunned the NBA partly because of how little warning other teams received. Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison worked with Lakers executive Rob Pelinka so quietly that no other team knew Dallas had made Dončić available.

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