Pat McAfee did not sound happy with Utah fans: ‘I’ll never see you again, hopefully’

Credit: University of Utah, ESPNIn recent weeks, College GameDay analyst Pat McAfee has been making a meal of an Athletic column that highlighted his role on the popular show.During consecutive stops in Utah, McAfee has called out The New York Times, which owns The Athletic, over a column that examined the contrast between his popularity and the growing sense that GameDay is becoming a show for someone other than college football fans.McAfee’s charismatic appeal to a segment of the college football audience is undeniable, especially given GameDay’s ratings, but aspects of his personality have raised eyebrows over the years, even among the most fervent watchers.Chief among them is his inability to handle criticism and his instinct to punch down at those he perceives as taking shots at him. This has come out several times in the form of McAfee slamming a college football fanbase from the pulpit of what is supposed to be a celebration of the sport.He infamously got into a spat with Washington State fans as part of a larger beef between the program and GameDay. He also trolled Georgia fans because some of them were mad he’d replaced David Pollack on the program.“It was a nice little reminder that, hey yea, you can go to hell too for what you said to me all year,” he later said.McAfee has mostly kept that fanbase-specific spite at bay since then, but it appears to have reared its head again this weekend during GameDay’s stop in Salt Lake City. McAfee did his usual schtick of taking off his shirt and slamming The Gray Lady, but when it came time to pick the winner of Utah-Houston, he sounded particularly spicy, not only picking Houston but also digging the knife in to Utes fans.“We appreciate all the love from everybody that camped out and hung out and came out to hang out with us,” said McAfee. “The fireworks at the beginning were special.“Now I will say the person who won the kicking raffle said $1 million wasn’t enough, and then they would go on to miss. The university’s Instagram account posted something talking a little trash about me last night, which I certainly love.“It’s hard to pick against this mighty Utah student section, but I’m gonna do it ten times out of ten. Give me Houston coming out of here with a big-time dub and proving that Utah hasn’t had to play anybody yet. They’re going to get a little bit of a struggle, and then maybe they get better down the stretch. Congrats to Houston getting a huge win here in Salt Lake City.“Thank you, guys. I’ll neversee you again, hopefully.”Let’s break it down.As for the kicking contest, the day’s contestant appeared to offend McAfee by noting that last week’s BYU kicking contest got a chance to win $3 million instead of the $1 million she was playing for. The ESPN analyst noted that his billionaire friends who pitched in last week didn’t do so this time.As for the Instagram video he Streisand-effected into our sphere, McAfee was referring to a video by Utah Student Experience in conjunction with the official University of Utah account, in which several Utah students clowned McAfee while camping out overnight for GameDay. You can watch it below or find it on TikTok. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The University of Utah (@universityofutah)All of which leads McAfee to say he’d pick against Utah “ten times out of ten,” noting they haven’t “had to play anybody yet,” and then capping the show by effectively saying he hopes he doesn’t come back to the Utah campus again.Neat.It’s always hard to tell where McAfee the Character and McAfee the Person begin and end, and part of the problem may be that he doesn’t know either.If you didn’t watch Saturday’s GameDay, you only need to see the very first and last segments to understand the disconnect. In the opening segment, in which McAfee took off his shirt and clapped back at the NY Times, he praised college football for having “the best atmosphere in all of sport. No matter what country you’re in, college football is the best. The fans are the greatest.” Three hours later, he chastised those same fans after a few of them cracked harmless jokes about him online, saying he never wanted to see them again.“Lighten up and learn how to take a joke” is something at the core of so many of McAfee’s missives to critics. He should consider heeding that advice, too.The post Pat McAfee did not sound happy with Utah fans: ‘I’ll never see you again, hopefully’ appeared first on Awful Announcing.