Pat McAfee has never shied away from a loud opinion, but the criticism surrounding ESPN’s College GameDay has pushed him to log off. Fans have blamed him for hurting the Saturday show, and he now says he has largely stayed away from the platform, describing it as a harsh space.
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“So, I’ve been staying off of X. Okay, just—it’s been pretty mean on there, you know, and everybody’s calling me a snowflake and everything,” Pat McAfee said on The Pat McAfee Show Live. “It’s like, okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah, I guess this is me being soft. A lot of ex-sports media people chiming in. I appreciate that. I’m sure you’re very similar to the situation I’m in. It is very fun.
“I’ve been kind of utilized in the political world. I did not know that was going to happen in my life. I’ve never been a candidate, and I think because of that, I don’t really have a lot of people getting my back in that world either. So I’ve just kind of pissed off all parties in that particular realm, and, boy, I learned my lesson. I’m going to let you know that that is going to be a world that I am going to be dabbling away from in every particular world.”
Pat McAfee has been keeping a lower profile lately, and it traces back to College GameDay’s stop in Salt Lake City for the Big 12 game between Utah and Houston.
On Monday, Oct. 26 episode of his show, McAfee said the trip left him feeling “uncomfortable.”
The University of Utah had posted a video, since deleted, showing students “dogging” him, as he put it, and calling him “corny” and “creepy” before the broadcast.
He felt a video made with the university’s official account could stir up hostility toward him. He also said the experience reminded him of Charlie Kirk’s attack at Utah Valley University in Orem on Sept. 10, 2025.
ESPN then kept GameDay in McAfee’s home state of Indiana for consecutive weeks, and he has stayed quieter since the backlash to his comments.
Then on Election Day, Joe Scarborough brought him up unexpectedly on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
“I’ve just had enough of this Pat McAfee ruining College GameDay,” said Scarborough. “I look forward to waking up on Saturday mornings and watching that. And I don’t know if they haven’t got the message yet, but the manosphere that we all thought was brought in in ‘24; it may get washed aside. Maybe you weren’t having to be [grunt noise] and yelling at people and being freaked out because two kids in Utah put up signs or say something that might offend you.”
McAfee has not conceded the criticism, instead framing his social-media absence as a response to hostility rather than acknowledgment of harm. His reaction suggests he is still figuring out how a debate about a Saturday morning show ended up on a political news set.
For now, he says he has been staying off the platform, and with GameDay heading to its next stop, the question is whether the noise around him fades or follows the show from city to city.