For Pat McAfee, going from punting football to punting hot takes wasn’t as easy as he makes it seem now. After retiring in 2017, he turned to the media. Starting small with a Barstool and a mic in Indianapolis didn’t promise him a spotlight. Slowly, episode by episode, and hot take after hot take, McAfee grew into a celebrated persona on camera. According to West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez, this attitude was evident right since his college days.

“As crazy as Pat may seem sometimes, he was one of the hardest workers I’ve ever coached,” Rodriguez told On3 on March 27. “In his craft. I mean, he really worked hard. He’s having great success now because he’s got a great personality, he’s knowledgeable, and he’s smart. But I think he’s having great success now because he works his a— off.”

Rich Rodriguez’s comments are contrary to the opinions of McAfee’s colleagues at College GameDay. In an interview with Front Office Sports last year, they detailed the host as an “entitled diva,” while another said everyone was “bending over backwards” to put McAfee “in a good position.” Those statements did not paint McAfee as someone who was giving his all, as Rodriguez claimed. The coach is warranted in his defense of McAfee because he saw him rise from being a nobody to a star in the NFL.

He went on to have a great career at both West Virginia and in the league as a punter for the Indianapolis Colts. His heroics got him two times into the NFL’s Pro Bowl, and he became a First-team All-American in 2008 with WVU. But life afterwards was hard.

Trying his luck in the broadcasting world, McAfee was rejected by prominent broadcasters like FOX, ESPN, and CBS. McAfee has recounted how executives told him they had “nothing” for him and viewed him as too risky or unpolished. Thereafter, when he tried to join the NFLPA’s TV Exec broadcast bootcamp to hone those skills, he was buried early on and detailed the dark side of that phase.

“The league’s network used to bury me,” McAfee said. “I was rejected from the NFL/NFLPA’s TV Exec Broadcast Bootcamp 3 times. The only player in history to have a job on TV without going through it. Out of context situations ran wild.. outright “anonymous” lies from talentless s—bag suits.. bans.. cancellations.. death threats.”

Fed up with all these closed doors, McAfee launched his own The Pat McAfee Show on Barstool Sports, and eventually went independent in 2018–19. It was something college fans hadn’t seen yet. From comedy to caricature drills to unfiltered takes, McAfee gradually found his audience and became the famed broadcaster he is today. The Pat McAfee Show also saw its highest viewership on ESPN this past year, averaging 436,000 viewers. There will always be a hot-and-cold perspective on the flamboyant media figure, but Pat McAfee will remain unapologetic for his bold comments.

Pat McAfee’s rant against ESPN and GameDay led to his colleague taking up arms against him

McAfee has always been an unfiltered take guy. He did it flawlessly at his Pat McAfee show and doesn’t change his persona for GameDay. So much so that even away from his press box, McAfee never holds back speaking his mind, even if it means speaking out against his employer. That’s exactly what happened in October last year when McAfee blasted the ESPN hierarchy and called out the ‘hate’ against him.

“If you think about old white people and old ESPN people, those are really the people that hate me the most at this stage of life,” McAfee said. “Now, granted, there are some other groups that certainly have threatened my life on a pretty regular basis; I’d say they hate me, too. But throughout the entirety, old whites and the old ESPN people over the last like three years have really hated me.”

Quickly after McAfee’s statement, a report came out which detailed that McAfee had the support of ESPN’s President, Burke Magnus, the Chairman, and Walt Disney CEO in his endeavors, despite the public outburst. But his colleagues weren’t satisfied, and hence came the ‘entitled’ diva comments. Whereas some colleagues urged McAfee anonymously to “grow up and talk” to ESPN people instead of doing public outbursts.

Despite all of it, though, ESPN isn’t letting McAfee go and is announcing new plans with him. That speaks to the force he has become in broadcasting now. Surely that wouldn’t have come with a ‘diva-like behavior’ but with consistent hard work, as Rich Rodriguez detailed.