Jason BatacaoESPN personality and “College GameDay” commentator Pat McAfee did not enjoy his visit to the University of Utah this past weekend.
That seemed clear when McAfee ended the broadcast by saying, “I’ll never see you again, hopefully.”
But he confirmed as much on his show on Monday.
“I’ve enjoyed this college football season — did not enjoy the University of Utah. Did not enjoy it,” McAfee said.
Why? A post from the University of Utah’s official Instagram account.
“Right before I go out there, I see that the university’s Instagram page ... they put out a video, ‘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 Instagram post has since been deleted.
“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.”
The University of Utah did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Rich Storry | ESPN Images) Pat McAfee during College GameDay at the University of Utah.
McAfee was far from done with his airing of grievances.
He said it was an “uncomfortable feeling” to see the post and then go out in front of a 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 added: “I like what they’re doing on the football field, but I just didn’t appreciate the university amplifying like that.”
McAfee said he also didn’t appreciate when the student picked for the weekly “Kicking is Easy” contest wondered aloud why the kick wasn’t worth more money.
“Wait, wait, wait. The BYU guy got $3 million,” the Utah student said before she kicked and missed a shot at $1 million.
(Rich Storry | ESPN Images) Pat McAfee and head coach Morgan Scalley of the Utah Utes on the set of College GameDay Built by the Home Depot at the University of Utah.
As for the Instagram account, McAfee said he hadn’t looked into who had control of the account, but the whole affair didn’t leave him eager for a return trip 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 might put an end to any hopes of the pregame show coming to the BYU-Utah game on Nov. 7.
“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.”
