ESPN’s Pat McAfee has come under plenty of fire over his reaction to a video featuring Utah students ahead of Week 8’s College GameDay. The controversy has since escalated to the extent that the University had to step in and apologize to McAfee. According to a former colleague of the ESPN personality, what fans saw last week was nothing new.
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“Yeah, I think that paranoia is who he is. He’s always paranoid,” said Jeff Vibbert, aka Vibbs, a former colleague of McAfee, on Barstool’s Out and About podcast. “When we were working there, you were just walking on eggshells, wondering what he was going to be like emotionally when he showed up. Who was he going to be mad at?”
“He has this paranoia, and you have to go along with it. You have to co-sign the paranoia and be like, ‘Yep, yep, you’re very valid in what you’re thinking,’” Vibbs continued.
Vibbs is a longtime Barstool Sports staffer from Indiana, and he worked with McAfee in Indianapolis after McAfee joined Barstool in 2017. McAfee left in 2018, reportedly feeling “disrespected by the business people in the building.”
On the Out and About podcast, co-host Pat McAuliffe said that TV personalities play a character, and that every once in a while the curtain gets pulled back. He asked Vibbs what he made of the situation, and so he explained the working environment.
Then co-host Kelly Keegs asked whether staff had to “baby him all the time.” Vibbs said you were never allowed to push back, and he described a cycle that kept repeating: McAfee would decide he disliked someone, announce he was cutting them off, and then do the same thing to someone new.
“He feels slighted by something that they posted from the [Utah] university account,” Vibbs said. “I get it, it should be pretty professional coming from the university, but I think it could be a joke. Whatever. Still, we’ve seen that script a million times where he’s like, ‘You know what? I don’t like them. They slighted me. In fact, I hate them. I’m never going to associate with them. I’m cutting them off. I’m burning that bridge completely.’ And then wash, rinse, repeat.”
Last week’s College GameDay was in Salt Lake City on Saturday, and the University of Utah’s Instagram account had posted a video the night before asking students for their best McAfee impression. One called him “corny,” and another said, “Keep the shirt on.”
On his show, McAfee said in the video they were “talking a little trash about me last night, which I certainly love.” Students later chanted for him to take his shirt off, and he did, with Nick Saban helping hold his chair. He also picked Houston to win and told the crowd, “I’ll never see you again, hopefully.” However, Utah won 21-13.
Later, the University of Utah apologized for the video and said it was grateful to host the GameDay crew and that they are always welcome back.
It took a more serious turn when McAfee discussed security concerns surrounding his appearance. He claimed he had received death threats and explained the involvement of the FBI after his Charlie Kirk statement last year.
“FBI’s sending snipers so me and the lads don’t get shot. That’s crazy,” McAfee wrote on X while describing his reaction to the situation.
The former Barstool staffer’s remarks provide a firsthand account of the working environment, explaining why the Utah controversy almost made him nostalgic and not in a good way.
McAfee’s frustration grew on Monday’s episode of Pat McAfee show. He said he “did not enjoy the University of Utah,” and said, “I thought to myself, ‘Has anything really scary happened at like a college gathering in the state of Utah recently?”
Giving a reference to the killing of political activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University in September last year, he equated himself to that. About McAfee’s latter claim, Vibbs was clear that he was shocked but not surprised.