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What started as a petty Snapchat message turned into one of college football’s wildest viral moments this season. It had the entire package of money flexing, public apologies, and a Kentucky fan named Garrett becoming the most talked-about troll in the SEC. The bizarre saga between backup quarterback Zach Calzada and a critic reached its conclusion when the fan who sparked the whole mess put out a lengthy apology on social media. Garrett didn’t waste time getting personal when he posted his apology on X. He opened with genuine contrition that felt worlds away from his original trolling. “Hey everyone, I’ve thought a lot about my actions, and the message I sent was uncalled for and very immature,” he wrote. “It does not reflect me as a person, and I’m sorry to Zach for even putting it out there. It makes me and our football program look bad as a whole. I never intended for this to be more than a light-hearted joke.” The fan admitted the obvious. His message spiralled into a national story and that clearly rattled him. He continued, “The last thing I want to be known as is a troll that just sends hateful messages to our players and brings them down. Everyone makes mistakes, and I recognize that what I did was a mistake. I would like to move on from this and continue following the Cats here on my account.” But he showed he hadn’t completely lost his sense of humor, saying, “Now it’s time to go get my money up and watch Kentucky take down the Cards tomorrow night!!” That was a playful callback to Calzada’s infamous taunt after Garrett had already explained himself on Kentucky Sports Radio’s live show on November 7. Garrett laid out the entire timeline of how his trolling escalated. “So basically, even before the season, I had been sending joking messages, kind of trolling him,” the fan admitted on air. He said Calzada had responded to a few messages here and there, nothing too serious, until that fateful night when Garrett slid up on a Snapchat story and typed those four words that pushed the 24-year-old quarterback over the edge. The words being, “you suck at football.” When Jones asked the obvious question of why Garret was targeting a QB who wasn’t even playing? Garrett didn’t flinch. “Well, I’m not a fan of him. I think he’s immature,” he said. He also unloaded on the decision to bring Calzada to Kentucky as “a complete embarrassment.” That’s when the money video arrived directly in his DMs, the one that would soon go viral across the entire sport. The video itself became instant internet infamy. There was Zach Calzada, speaking directly to Garrett while fanning what appeared to be at least $5,000 in crisp $100 bills. “Hey, what you need to do, Garrett, is your ass needs to stop hatin’ and go get you some money,” Calzada said in the clip. “But since you ain’t got nothing, you go ahead and you can count mine. Let’s count. Don’t lose count, Garrett. Straight hundreds.” Read Top Stories First From EssentiallySports Click here and check box next to EssentiallySports He spread the cash on the ground and rubbed the bills around while repeating variations of “get your money up” over and over. The context made it even worse for Kentucky fans. This was a backup quarterback who’d played exactly two games, thrown zero touchdowns, completed 47.2% of his passes for a measly 234 yards with one interception before getting benched for true freshman Cutter Boley. And Kentucky had reportedly paid around $1.25 million to pull Calzada from the FCS program at Incarnate Word, where he’d thrown for 6,342 yards and 54 touchdowns across two seasons. So watching all that donor money literally being flashed on camera by a guy ranking 174th out of 179 qualifying quarterbacks in PFF’s passing grade didn’t sit well with Big Blue Nation. Zach Calzada’s damage control apology Zach Calzada didn’t wait long to try cleaning up the mess he’d created. The quarterback took to Instagram on Friday, November 7, posting a statement on his story that read like someone who’d just gotten a very serious phone call from his head coach. “I take full responsibility for the video I sent to someone on social media. I let my emotions get the best of me,” Calzada wrote. “It does not reflect the gratitude I should share as a member of the Kentucky Football team. I sincerely apologize to my teammates, coaches, and our fans. I’ll learn from this, do better, and move forward with more respect for the opportunity I’ve been given.” A Kentucky spokesperson quickly confirmed that Calzada had “taken responsibility for his actions” and “done the right thing,” adding that it was now “time to move forward.” The whole thing felt rushed but necessary, especially considering this was a backup quarterback who’d played exactly two games and contributed nothing statistically to the team’s season.
