Joe Scarborough spent more than two minutes on Morning Joe on the morning of the election tearing into Pat McAfee’s growing role on ’s College GameDay, saying he had “just had enough” of McAfee “ruining” the show. Scarborough said he still looks forward to Saturday mornings for the program, but that has made it a shame for viewers by giving McAfee too much prominence.
He framed the complaint as a loss for the audience, not just a personal gripe. “I love watching Rece Davis. I love watching those guys and watching Nick Saban on there talking.... Kirk Herbstreit’s amazing. Desmond Howard — they’re all great!” Scarborough said, before adding that they are “all being eclipsed by ’s just insatiable desire to give this guy more time.”
The criticism landed because College GameDay has changed sharply since McAfee joined full-time in 2022. Willie Geist said the show now has a different feel, calling McAfee the “de facto” lead and saying it “doesn’t work the same way,” even as he defended the program as “still a great show because of all the pieces in it” and said it has become “a little bit of the McAfee show.”
That shift has been especially visible in the run of recent broadcasts. College GameDay was in Salt Lake City on Oct. 24 ahead of the Utes’ matchup with Houston, after the previous week’s stop at BYU in Provo. Scarborough also pointed to McAfee’s reaction to a student video that mocked him before the Salt Lake City visit, saying, “Maybe you aren’t having to be yelling at people and being freaked out because two kids in Utah put up signs or say something that might offend you.”
McAfee later criticized the University of Utah on his show the following Monday and said he felt uncomfortable after seeing the video on the school’s official social media account before the broadcast. The University of Utah apologized and said it had intended “lighthearted engagement” but had “missed the mark.”
Last week, McAfee addressed the backlash in a lengthy post on X, saying he had received death threats and that some messages had extended to his wife and children. He wrote, “I’m trying my best in real time,” and said he loved sports because it is unifying. Scarborough’s on-air critique added another public voice to the argument over how far should keep pushing McAfee to the front of College GameDay, and the unanswered question now is whether the network keeps giving him more time or reins him back in.
