College GameDay is going to Bloomington this weekend, where Indiana will host Minnesota, and that choice has predictably sparked some frustration from fans who thought Atlanta made far more sense. Florida-Georgia is the only game on Saturday featuring two top-20 teams, so the case for heading to the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party was easy to make.
Still, there’s a certain logic to ESPN staying away from it this week, and Pat McAfee’s reaction to a light jab from Utah last weekend is a big reason why.
Some social media accounts tied to Utah shared a student-made video featuring other students weighing in on GameDay being in town. In the clip, a few students poked fun at McAfee’s habit of taking off his shirt and his louder-than-life style when making picks.
That was about as mild as criticism gets.
McAfee, though, took it personally. During Saturday’s broadcast, while giving his pick, he brought up the video and closed with this line:
“Thank you, guys. I’ll never see you again, hopefully."
The moment was strange enough on its own, but he wasn’t done. On Monday, McAfee came back to the topic and leaned even harder into his annoyance:
“And then I thought to myself, has anything like really scary happened at like a college gathering in the state of Utah recently? Like, do we think we should be amplifying reasons for why people hate my guts as a university? I don’t know.”
That’s the issue with McAfee. It’s not that he’s popular.
Plenty of popular voices around college football add something to the conversation. McAfee doesn’t.
Too often, he turns the spotlight back on himself instead of the sport.
When he catches attention, it usually comes from the gimmicks, not the analysis. And after a while, the act starts to feel less like entertainment and more like noise.
That’s why a lot of viewers have grown tired of seeing him dominate the GameDay conversation. What used to feel like a show built around the school, the game, and the setting now too often feels like a stage for McAfee to be McAfee.
So yes, Florida-Georgia probably deserved the show. But if ESPN was going to steer clear of Atlanta anyway, the reaction to the Utah video at least made the snub easier to swallow.
In Other News...
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Matt Painter Sent Purdue An Early Warning After Ugly UConn Loss
Purdues exhibition against No. 4 UConn offered an early look at where the Boilermakers still have work to do before the games start counting. The 76-53 loss was especially rough on the perimeter and on the glass, and Matt Painter came away with a clear sense that his team has to get tougher, cleaner and more disciplined in the next stretch of practices if it wants to be ready for the regular season.
Painter also had reason to take note of some individual performances, especially from younger players who are still adjusting to the speed and physicality of high-level college basketball. Even in a game that exposed several flaws, there were a few spots worth building on, but the bigger takeaway was how far Purdue still has to go in turning that kind of effort into something that travels once the season begins. [Read more 🡒]