Pat McAfee says he donated to West Virginia football after major donor didn’t give as expected

“The whole world we’re currently in is run by money,” said Pat McAfee on Saturday’s edition of College GameDay from Nashville, Tennessee.

It’s a funny statement because it presumes that it was never the case, as if college football hasn’t been driven by the desire to make money for those in charge for the last 60 years. It wasn’t really until players started asking for their fair share of those billions that people started freaking out.

But I digress.

McAfee was sharing his thoughts on how a school’s football program’s fortunes can often be at the whims of wealthy donors whose millions can be the difference between getting the players needed to compete for championships and mediocrity. However, sometimes, when a donor isn’t seeing the results they want, they might decide to pull their money regardless. The GameDay analyst’s diatribe led up to an anecdote he shared about being asked on short notice to help the West Virginia football program with a cash infusion after their biggest donor backed out.

Your boosters can really change your university and your football team..

A lot of these money people are gonna wanna have a say in what’s going on..

That’s the reality of the College Football world that we’re in right now #CollegeGameDay pic.twitter.com/zfNOrdf4Yh

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) October 25, 2025

“There was a Wednesday that I got a call from Rich Rodriguez, who was my college football coach  — a man that I think is going to be able to do good things at West Virginia — and one of our biggest donors decided he was not going to give the amount of money that we thought he was potentially going to give and they needed the money by the next day,” said McAfee. “They were like, Hey, we need this money by the next day because we got these guys that we made these promises to, and now the money isn’t coming from where we thought it was going to come through. And I said, ‘Alright, I’ll help.’ So, I sent the money over. I didn’t even think to myself, man, I should get some leverage here. I should get some say in who’s playing because I think every guy I potentially played, on their way out of the door already. They have not won a lot of games, but I didn’t say that. I just wanted to help the program.”

The whole anecdote is classic McAfee, a humblebrag peppered with multiple digs and a whisp of a threat.

As for who the secret donor is that McAfee threw under the bus, we can’t say for sure, but many West Virginia fans have pointed the finger at Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, an alum and massive donor to WVU.

McAfee touches all the classic bases as he goes out of his way to share that he donated, taking a dig at the players whose NIL he presumably funded, and sending a message that the team might want to win more games (WVU is currently 2-5, 0-4 in conference play).

Consciously or subconsciously, when you couple his preamble with the reveal of his donation, it feels like he’s trying to say that he was a nice guy this time, but if things don’t improve, he might be like that other donor next time he gets a call from RichRod.