If there’s one thing about the internet, it’s that people hate change and love to hate…and social media is the perfect place for those two things to collide.
Unfortunately for country music’s sweetheart Lainey Wilson, she was the brunt of this weekend’s online discourse following the highly anticipated kickoff of college football. The Louisiana native was fittingly featured on College GameDay at the season opener in Baton Rouge as the celebrity guest picker and the event’s musical headliner.
Wilson joined the crew of Nick Saban, Desmond Howard, Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, and Pat McAfee (who also received his own fair share of internet hate as expected) to help make their picks for the Week 1 games and who will be the upcoming major conference champions. It’s no surprise that Wilson stuck with LSU as her main pick for most of the games and held her own at the table amongst ESPN’s star-studded crew.
Luckily, fans didn’t really have a problem with her on-air presence at the announcing desk, but when it came time for her kick-off performance of the show’s theme song… well, that’s a whole other story. Accompanied by LSU’s marching band, she led the stage with a live rendition of Big & Rich’s “Comin’ To Your City.” Leading into its 40th season, I think ESPN anticipated the celebrity feature to be a well-received mix-up up for the anniversary season, but the internet said otherwise.
With many missing Big & Rich’s original 2005 rendition of the hit, some sick of the country music inclusion in general, and others downright calling out the show as horribly produced, social media erupted in a field day of many people calling out Wilson’s performance:
Former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback and Wilson’s new husband, Devlin “Duck” Hodges, who happened to be in the crowd for Saturday’s show, decided to step in as her knight in shining armor when at least one online critic came after his wife. One of the most viral responses to ESPN College GameDay’s clip of Wilson’s performance on Twitter/X read, “Why did anyone think this was a good idea?”
Hodges saw right through user @claybwells10, a UGA alum with just over 1,600 followers and a blue check mark. Calling out what many of us are probably thinking anytime someone without celebrity status is verified online, Hodges clapped back: “Glad to see you purchased a blue check mark.”
Considering the sheer number of haters online, Hodges otherwise kept his X responses fairly tame. Aside from that one snide remark, he only chimed in on another clip of Wilson joking that she was a “cougar” while making her Big 12 pick:
There were still a fair few country music fans and sympathetic viewers who recognized what ESPN was trying to accomplish by bringing in a Louisiana native for the Baton Rouge kickoff, not to mention the fact that the horrible sound quality and audio sync issues can’t be blamed on the “Heart Like A Truck” singer.
And at least Wilson apparently has a supportive husband waiting for her at home, which is more than many of the basement-dwelling trolls online can say. Faulty performance aside, she also announced during the show that she’ll return to host the CMA Awards for the third consecutive year this November, where she’ll likely be met with a much warmer reception from an industry crowd that adores her.
If you haven’t already, check out her performance below: