Former Mountaineer Pat McAfee spoke with fellow former Mountaineer PacMan Jones about the current state of West Virginia athletics. This came on the heels of WVU hiring Mark Kellogg as their next women’s head basketball coach and they talked about how money is changing the way of college athletics and what that future looks like for West Virginia.
“West Virginia has money right now, that’s what I’m saying,” McAfee said. “PacMan has kind of explained to me because he’s a lot closer to the situation than I have been… West Virginia has access to money and as this [name, image, and likeness] thing goes, this is what’s going to happen.”
McAfee — who admitted there was a letter sent from the university — added that NIL could reshape who is able to win each year in college sports.
“It had become pretty irrelevant, like that is kind of happened,” McAfee explained. “And that is going to happen when you go to the Big 12 and the Big 12 has all this tradition and history so they’re obviously going to market those schools. And if you’re not winning in those things, they’re not going to take time to push your school. So West Virginia and Big 12 have not been a good fit at all.”
Jones then chimed in saying,”We got money and we got a new AD.”
Jones has been visible at recent West Virginia football spring practices and is continually one of the public faces backing West Virginia athletics.
“Mr. Baker is unbelievable guy and talked about the different things that we’re trying to do to get us back at the top. We got some big money coming in,” Jones said. “You got to pay to play. I just think this year, with all the stuff I’ve learned the last month and a half, two months, we’re rounding up funds to pay to play.”
Full clip of the interaction can be found here:
