Donald Trump has once again welcomed college football champions with burgers and fries. The President greeted the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision champions, North Dakota State, at the White House on Monday with a lunch that included Big Macs, french fries and Chick-fil-A sandwiches.

In January Trump served a similar spread that included hundreds of hamburgers to the Clemson Tigers after they won the College Football Playoff, citing the government shutdown that was underway at the time. North Dakota play in the level below the Tigers.

Trump said he could have offered North Dakota more traditional food, but, “I know you people” before adding “we like American companies.”

After Clemson’s visit it emerged that nearly three-quarters of the team’s black players declined to visit the White House. Three African American members of the Tigers said Trump’s “racism” and “divisive politics” led them to stay away from the ceremony.

North Dakota were expected to send a more united team to the White House. The team’s coach, Matt Entz, said the Bison had addressed political issues before the trip. “This isn’t a political trip, this is a Bison trip,” Entz told the Grand Forks Herald. “Personally, I sold it as two things: it’s one more opportunity for the 2018 team to be together, but also in my mind the start of the 2019 season and the things we’re going to do together.”

North Dakota players inspect the president’s buffet choices. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

He added: “The No1 thing is just the team being together. It’s probably watching our players as they experience something that some of them probably have never been a part of before. It’s seeing [running back] Ty Brooks walk into the White House and just knowing that in 10 years from now he’s going to be able to tell his family, his friends, that, yeah, I went to the White House with my football team.”

Sports team’s visits to the White House have become a talking points ever since Trump took up office. Earlier this year, the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors opted to visit former president Barack Obama during their lone trip to the nation’s capital this season, avoiding the traditional post-championship White House visit for the second time in as many years.