Love him or hate him, Pat McAfee has brought a different element — and level of energy — to College GameDay. And while McAfee has been a polarizing figure on ESPN’s traveling pregame college football roadshow, the ratings speak for themselves.
Live from Eugene, Oregon, Saturday’s episode was the most-watched October edition of GameDay since the show expanded to its three-hour format in 2009.
McAfee has much to do with the current viewership hot streak, and so does Nick Saban.
Appearing on the New Heights podcast with Travis and Jason Kelce, McAfee shared how much the show means to him, noting how surreal it is to be part of an institution he grew up watching.
“When you talk about College GameDay, I think just like everybody else in the NFL, we watch College GameDay every Saturday to keep up with — it’s in every NFL building,” McAfee says. “And I think in college, we watched every single Saturday, so I think I’ve always been a College GameDay fan. You know, coming from Pittsburgh, which is an NFL town, which is interesting, whenever College GameDay becomes an opportunity, it was never a show that I thought to myself I could be on.
“But when you’re presented with the opportunity to be on like one of the top two institutions in the history of sports media, and it’s football and it’s wrestling — because it’s front of a live audience. And, obviously, I am so incredibly lucky to have a relationship with the WWE, too, growing up how big of a fan I was of wrestling and WWF… So, it’s like football and wrestling, and it’s one of the greatest shows in the history of the shows. There’s only so many spots, so massive honor to even be asked to do this. It’s like, ‘Alright, I’m going in; I’m gonna go in.’ And I’ve been baptized by college football in this entire thing — it is electric, bro.
“I know you’re from Cleveland; I’m from Pittsburgh, these college towns, especially down in the South. I mean, out in Oregon, bananas, Berkeley, crazy. These people in the south are praying to, its God, its Jesus Christ and then it is the team. It’s crazy. It’s been an honor, dude. It’s been so much fun. So, I try to have a blast everywhere I go because of how committed, and that is part of college ball, all the pageantry and the tradition and loyalty.”
That wasn’t always the case, but McAfee recognizes that he’s fortunate to be in his position opposite Saban, Rece Davis, Kirk Hebrstreit, Desmond Howard and Lee Corso. And to say he knew it was going to go the way it has—he had no idea. McAfee tells the Kelce brothers that he was hoping to just survive and pay his guys.
He never imagined this.
But part of becoming the face — and energy—of GameDay is understanding the aforementioned pageantry, tradition, and loyalty. When asked about how the college atmosphere compares to the NFL, McAfee didn’t mince words, saying that every college has call-and-response chants akin to soccer games worldwide.
“That keeps the stadiums throughout,” McAfee said. “You know there’s a dead period in NFL games, maybe? It’s like the college one’s, there’s no dead period, because there’s give-and-take calls back-and-forth. When I do all that sh*t on GameDay, it’s like that’s what they’re doing in the stadium. I’m very lucky to learn that…The thing about it is, I’m learning that from walking around the town the day before, so I try to go experience their food spot(s)…
“So, I’m trying to tell my own story when I go experience. I go see some spots. I’ll go see the team facility. And I’ll try to ask people at all these places, I’m like, ‘Hey, what’s the sh*t? What are we saying out here?’ And I’ll get an answer from somebody, and they’ll be like, ‘You say Go, and they say Dawgs.’ And I’m like, ‘They’ll go?’ They’ll go with you — Thank God…The first time when that crowd responds to me in the morning for GameDay, and I hear it back, I’m like, ‘Thank God, I was not lied to. That is good news.’
“But Eugene showed up in a big way. Berkeley showed up in a big way. Obviously, Alabama; I’m having the time of my life, man. And I’m learning so much about all these schools — and everybody’s cool… That’s like a part of it, that’s a part of college ball, is like the fans.”
Another part of college ball is how many teams McAfee and his GameDay counterparts have to follow.
“So, if I see it, normally it’s gonna stay there,” he said. “But, I have to see it, though. So, the night before College GameDay, I’m running through everything. I’m running through every team. I’m running through every player. I’ve got ‘Tone Digs,’ one of my guys, he writes up a full preview of what the weekend will be like, but I have to see it. Once I see it, though, it’s in there.”
And once you see McAfee on GameDay, it’s hard to imagine the show without him.
