President Donald Trump attended Saturday's SEC football game between the No. 1 Texas Longhorns and No. 14 Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville on September 26, 2026 -- the first meeting between the two programs since the 1969 Cotton Bowl.
The arrival
Trump landed at nearby McGhee Tyson Airport at around 11:28 a.m. and traveled to the stadium by motorcade, arriving about 40 minutes before kickoff. Air Force One flew low over Neyland Stadium -- home to a crowd of more than 100,000, among the largest in the country -- shortly before noon. Multiple outlets, including Yahoo Sports and Fox News' OutKick, described the flyover as being met with a loud, positive reaction as fans turned to watch the aircraft pass overhead.
A more mixed reaction on the videoboard
Later, in the first half of the game, Trump was shown on the stadium's video board pumping his fist and thanking the crowd. What happened next is reported differently depending on the outlet. Some described the moment as another wave of cheers. Others, including Raw Story, reported that Trump was booed by a portion of the crowd. Notably, even reporting that described booing acknowledged real uncertainty: the crowd reaction was described as hard to measure from short video clips, with the possibility that some of the noise was cheering rather than booing.
No source reviewed for this article reported a unanimous reaction from the crowd in either direction.
The rest of the visit
Trump watched the game from a suite alongside Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), where he was seen pumping his fist toward the crowd. He left the stadium at halftime.
