College football fans are clearly not into pop country, and they might have only found that out because of Walker Hayes’ brutal performance ahead of the National Championship game.
ESPN’s College Gameday was previewing the big game between the Michigan Wolverines and Washington Huskies, and during a break, they decided to throw it over to a performance that was happening outside of the stadium. Who was gracing the small stage a couple of hours before kickoff?
Pop country’s Walker Hayes, of course.
The “Fancy Like” singer (which came out in 2021, mind you) was doing his best to get the crowd into his performance of “Y’all Life,” and it was pretty easy to see that no one there in the crowd was really feeling it. Despite Hayes’ best efforts, and his daughter doing TikTok dances in the background, Walker’s performance fell as flat as the pitch he was singing in.
Take a look:
@officialnicholas1 @Walker Hayes #walkerhayes #michiganstatefootball #jjmccarthy #collegefootball #fyp #virall ♬ original sound – Nicholas Bueno👑
Sheesh, at one point he yelled “where y’all at,” and I think he was genuinely asking that question instead of trying to get the crowd pumped up.
Social media wasn’t kind to the mini-concert that aired on ESPN, and quickly got to eviscerating the “country music singer” on X (formerly Twitter).
You can see some of the best commentary of Hayes’ performance below:
That Walker Hayes performance they just had on ESPN was one of the cringiest things I’ve ever watched pic.twitter.com/1WpXDtzQTe
— Skyler Wilson (@SwooshLifeSky) January 8, 2024
I’m glad they put Walker Hayes on ESPN just now so I know to never listen on my own time.
— Kyle Evans (@KyleEvans123) January 8, 2024
Walker Hayes performance had me pic.twitter.com/WAL1gggugw
— Quentan (@22Qbaby) January 8, 2024
This Walker Hayes performance got me like: pic.twitter.com/VPnen6kTSd
— Bobby (@BobbyG2024) January 8, 2024
This Walker Hayes country-rap dogshit with the weird tik tok dancers in the background is the cringiest shit I’ve ever seen in my life
— sixfivetripod (@six5tripod) January 8, 2024
Walker Hayes on espn rn pic.twitter.com/BpYb7W9wwO
— Willie Johnson (@WillieJohnson08) January 8, 2024
I don’t know who Walker Hayes is but he’s not good.
— OBVIOUS SHIRTS® (@obvious_shirts) January 8, 2024
Hope Michigan performs better tonight than Walker Hayes just did on #CollegeGameday pic.twitter.com/HOn9AW5wQw
— Marc Malkoskie (@marcmalkoskie) January 8, 2024
And unfortunately for Walker (who is genuinely a really good dude), this isn’t the first time he’s been cooked by college football fans.
At the beginning of the season, the SEC tweeted about his new song “Y’all Life” being the “song of the season,” and ended up deleting it because the response was so bad:
And during the Chiefs vs Bengals AFC Championship Game in 2022, he got torched for a performance that was so loud you couldn’t hear the halftime show.
I’m thinking Walker should probably just stay away from football all together…
