Getty Image / Kevin C. Cox
Pat McAfee is a West Virginia University legend. After serving as their kicker and punter in one of the program’s greatest stretches of all-time from 2005-2008. In his time in the NFL and in his media career, he’s always repped the Mountaineers.
On Friday, Pat McAfee was in Morgantown, West Virginia for a Pat McAfee Show live broadcast from the West Virginia campus ahead of the big West Virginia-Penn State game on Saturday. And, he made a lot of Mountaineer fans happy with a huge donation to their NIL efforts.
McAfee has been known to give big charitable gifts before, and did a shtick last year while touring college campuses that involved a student making a basketball shot for free tuition. But, when he announced he was going to give a huge chunk of change to WVU’s NIL, it was still unexpected. Take a look.
We wanna say thank you to West Virginia..
I will be donating $1M to the West Virginia NIL Collective from the entire team I played alongside..
I was VERY lucky to be on that team and this is from ALL of us #WVUPMSLive pic.twitter.com/nsqPwbVuip
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) August 30, 2024
McAfee donated on behalf of the teams he played with there. And, they were some great teams. from 2005-2008, the Mountaineers went 42-9, including an 11-1, 11-1, 11-2 stretch from 2005-2007 that had the program among the nation’s elite. Only a disastrous loss in the regular-season finale against rival Pitt in 2007 in a 13-9 game that saw McAfee miss two field goals for heavily-favored West Virginia kept them out of the BCS National Championship Game in 2007.
Pat White, who appeared on the Pat McAfee show on Friday, and Steve Slaton were the star quarterback and running backs from those teams, with Slaton leaving school a year early following the 2007 season for the NFL.
As for Saturday’s game, West Virginia is around a touchdown underdog against #8 Penn State as they look for a huge win to build on a 9-win season last year that probably saved Head Coach Neal Brown’s job.
Pat McAfee won’t be sticking around for it, though. He will join the rest of the College GameDay crew in College Station, Texas for tomorrow’s Notre Dame-Texas A&M game.