Pat McAfee made it clear he did not come away from the University of Utah with warm feelings after “College GameDay” stopped there over the weekend.
The ESPN host said Monday that the trip left him with a bad taste, pointing first to the university’s official Instagram account and then to the atmosphere around the show’s visit.
“I’ve enjoyed this college football season - did not enjoy the University of Utah. Did not enjoy it,” McAfee said.
His frustration centered on a video posted by the university’s Instagram account shortly before he went on air. In the clip, students were asked, “Can you do an impression of Pat McAfee?”
“One kid goes, ‘Ah, he’s corny,’ and another kid calls me ‘creepy.’ OK, if these kids would have done this on their own blogs, all good.
Everybody’s taking shots at me for everything. I get it. ...
The university puts that out as I’m about to go do an infomercial for the place?”
The post has since been deleted.
McAfee said the choice to publish that video while he was on campus made the whole experience feel off.
“I don’t think you needed to go with those two things, did you?” McAfee said.
“It was just weird. It was just a weird thing.”
He said the moment hit him as he was preparing to go in front of the crowd.
“I’m getting a lot of shrapnel from a lot of places,” he said. “The university is putting this out.
That is something I just had never experienced really in my entire life. So it kind of set me off a little bit.
“It made me feel a little bit weird. ... And then I thought to myself, ‘Has anything like really scary happened at like a college gathering in the state of Utah recently?’” he said, referencing the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University last year.
McAfee also said he didn’t appreciate the way one student reacted during the weekly “Kicking is Easy” segment. The student, after being selected, questioned why the prize money wasn’t higher.
“Wait, wait, wait. The BYU guy got $3 million,” the Utah student said before she kicked and missed a shot at $1 million.
McAfee said he had not investigated who controlled the Instagram account, but he made it plain he wasn’t eager to head back to Salt Lake City.
“I’ll hopefully never go to that place,” he said. “I think I have COVID or something whenever ‘GameDay’ goes back if I’m still a part of ‘GameDay.’”
That could complicate any hopes of bringing the pregame show to the BYU-Utah game on Nov. 7.
McAfee closed by saying the trip left him wanting out fast, even while praising the football team.
“I walked up to that set and said, ‘I think I hate this place. I think I hate this place,’” he said.
“But their football team - good at football. Really, really good at football.
But I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. See you.
Goodbye. I’m out of here.”
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