Following another embarrassing offensive performance from the Iowa Hawkeyes football team on Saturday, somebody tricked Iowa head basketball coach Fran McCaffery into making a video subtly disparaging current Iowa football offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz that has since gone viral.
McCaffery is featured on the popular website Cameo, where fans can request personalized videos from athletes and celebrities for a fee. The website is often used to send messages to friends or family for birthdays, holidays, or special occasions.
This week, somebody paid McCaffery – along with former Iowa player Bob Stoops – to send an encouraging message to “Brian” who was struggling at his job, encouraging him to leave Iowa. McCaffery had no idea he was being duped, but the rest of the Internet quickly realized that the video was a troll attempt and that “Brian” was supposed to be Brian Ferentz.
After learning that he’d been duped, McCaffery released a statement on Tuesday night clarifying that he had no ill intent in making the video.
Statement from Iowa MBB coach Fran McCaffery on the cameo video he produced recently: “I agreed to do Cameo on a regular basis to raise money for Coaches vs. Cancer. I would never do anything to disparage any Hawkeye program and fully support Kirk, Brian and our football team.”
— Chad Leistikow🆑 (@ChadLeistikow) September 14, 2022
“I agreed to do Cameo on a regular basis to raise money for Coaches vs. Cancer. I would never do anything to disparage any Hawkeye program and fully support Kirk, Brian and our football team,” McCaffery said in the statement shared by Chad Leistikow on Twitter.
It’s obvious that McCaffery was an innocent party in this situation and was completely oblivious to what was going on. But that just made it funnier.
