Pat McAfee has been explaining for days why a University of Utah video of students poking fun at him before “College GameDay”’s visit bothered him so much. However, former ESPN personality Michelle Beadle went on “The Dan Le Batard Show” on Thursday morning and called his response “one of the softest reactions to something that was so ridiculously unserious.”

Beadle answered McAfee’s worries about his safety and his fight with the school by pointing to her own years as a woman in the business.

Why a Utah Student Video Left Pat McAfee Uncomfortable

McAfee visited the school on Oct. 24. It was “GameDay”’s second straight weekend in the state, and No. 10 Utah went on to beat No. 14 Houston 21-13 that night.

Before the show, Utah Student Experience and the university’s official social media accounts posted a video in which students camping out for the broadcast did their best McAfee impressions while also calling him “corny” and “creepy”.

McAfee signed off by telling the crowd, “Thank you, guys. I’ll never see you again, hopefully.”

So why did a few student impressions land so hard? McAfee answered that on Monday’s “The Pat McAfee Show.”

“Okay, if these kids would have done this on their own blogs, all good. I mean, everybody’s taking shots at me anyways for everything. I get it… the university puts that out? Like, as I’m about to go out and do an infomercial for the place, and then I’m walking in front of thousands of these people, this is how the university feels about it?”

He next alluded to Charlie Kirk being assassinated in September 2025 at Utah Valley University, which lies roughly 40 miles to the south of Salt Lake City.

“And then I thought to myself, has anything like really scary happened at like a college gathering in the state of Utah recently? Like, do we think we should be amplifying reasons for why people hate my guts as a university? I don’t know.”

Utah apologized for the video later Monday, and ESPN issued a statement supporting McAfee’s safety concerns.

Before Beadle went on air, McAfee also posted at length about the threats he says he receives, writing of his mentions and direct messages, “I’m sure if I went in there now, I’d find some wishes for and threats of death for me… The things that get said about what my daughter and son and wife deserve are all rather wild as well.”

Michelle Beadle Weighs McAfee’s Complaints Against Years of Threats

“We are constantly told as women that we’re hysterical, we’re too emotional, we can’t handle things. I can’t tell you how many death and [expletive] threats I’ve gotten via social media since 2009 when we got on Twitter originally. I could never be that soft. Never,” Beadle said bluntly.

“This has been one of the softest, and we’ve seen quite a few from some of the people at the top of this food pyramid of sports media, one of the softest reactions to something that was so ridiculously unserious.”

She followed with a wish and a prediction. “I’d like to think people are watching themselves and maybe learning a couple of things. Let it humble you the proper way, but I don’t think that’s what we’re going to see. So, quite frankly, from afar, I’m enjoying every single second of it.”

Linda Cohn Asks Why McAfee Amplified the Utah Clip

Beadle isn’t the only one with ESPN roots to take a swing at McAfee. Linda Cohn, a former ESPN anchor, watched the video and then his response to it.

On “The Linda Cohn Show” this week, Cohn zeroed in on what happened once he used his enormous platform to talk about a clip of students mocking him.

“Pat, why are you making sure the entire country sees the video that bothered you?”

She also had a reminder for someone who jokes, delivers strong opinions, and gets audiences talking for a living. “By now, you have to know not everybody is going to like you. That’s the business.”

Utah’s apology noted that “GameDay” has now visited its campus seven times. If the show makes an eighth trip to Salt Lake City with McAfee on the set, his Oct. 24 sign-off will get its test.