On Saturday, Pat McAfee and the College GameDay crew were in Salt Lake City, Utah, for the Big 12 showdown between the Utah Utes and Houston Cougars. The Utes won 21-13, grabbing their seventh win and extending their undefeated season. But McAfee didn’t enjoy his time at the university and said he hopes never to go back.
On Monday, McAfee revisited his experience at Utah on The Pat McAfee Show and aired all his grievances from the weekend.
“I’ve really enjoyed this college football season. Did not enjoy University of Utah,” McAfee said, via Awful Announcing. “Did not enjoy it.
“You know why I didn’t like it mostly? Right before I go out there, okay, right before I go out there, I see the University of Utah’s Instagram page, okay?… They put out a video, can you do an impression of Pat McAfee? And one kid goes, ‘Ah, he’s corny.’ Another kid calls me creepy. Okay, if these kids would have done this on their own blogs, all good. I mean, everybody’s taking shots at me anyways for everything. I get it. If the two ladies that were hosting that put that out on their own blog, I’d be okay with it. Hey, you, you’re allowed to do what you— the university puts that out? Like, as I’m about to go out and do an infomercial for the place, and then I’m walking in front of thousands of these people, this is how the university feels about it?
“It’s an uncomfortable feeling… I’m getting a lot of shrapnel from a lot of places. 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, I would say. Made me feel a little bit weird.”
McAfee was offended by a video made by Utah Student Experience in conjunction with the official University of Utah account, which showed several students mocking the College GameDay host as they camped out for the Saturday festivities. The video has since been deleted from the Instagram and TikTok accounts.
McAfee then alluded to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which happened at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, in September 2025, suggesting that the university’s post could fuel hostility toward him.
“And then I thought to myself, has anything like really scary happened at like a college gathering in the state of Utah recently?” McAfee asked. “Like, do we think we should be amplifying reasons for why people hate my guts as a university? I don’t know.”
During McAfee’s field goal kicking contest, the contestant commented on the lower prize amount this week, as last week’s was $3 million compared to $1 million on Saturday. The comments didn’t sit well with McAfee, who explained that his friend, Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith, pitched in last week but didn’t this time, which is why the amount was lower.
“It was a lot of mixed feelings for me going out there. And then obviously the kicker goes, ‘Only $1 million? Only $1 million?’ It’s like, all right, I hate this place. I hate this place,” he continued. “They got a good football team, though. They got a good football team. But I’ve never been more uncomfortable, honestly, in my life walking in front of a group of people after watching their university put out a post basically dogging me just moments before.”
McAfee said he was offended by the video released on the university’s official social media account and vowed to hopefully never return.
“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. But I, I did not enjoy the morning there… Just didn’t like the university taking a shot at me.
“New York Times, do what you got to do. I guess, I guess you kill me. All the sports media tabloids, people, they quote me out of context. They build a narrative about me. But you got people that really hate my guts out there, like really hate my guts. And I understand it. I guess this is just a part of what life is, especially because I have a lot of things that are very hateable about me. I could certainly understand that. But the university gaslighting some of it right before I go out there to talk about your school, especially with what happened 40 miles south of Salt Lake City a little over a year ago. I did not enjoy that.
“I was very, very uncomfortable. I was just very, very uncomfortable.”
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