Taylor Swift Engagement Mock Sparks Huskers Backpedal After Fans Call Post “Gross”

I am Sage Matthews, and yes, the University of Nebraska really did yank an X post that mocked Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement after fans torched it as gross. Another day, another brand learns that courting clout by poking a megastar couple is a fast track to public shaming and a very quiet delete key.

Here is the mess in plain sight. On Aug. 28, after Nebraska beat Cincinnati in a nonconference face off at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium, the Huskers’ official account shared an edited version of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement photo, swapping in the team’s mascot Herbie Husker so it looked like Taylor was almost kissing a cartoon farmhand. The caption read, “Change of plans.” The timing was not subtle. Travis, a Cincinnati alum, attended the game with his new fiancée, a detail that made the gag feel less like playful ribbing and more like punching down on someone’s engagement announcement. Within hours, the blowback was loud enough that the team deleted the post entirely, a tidy digital walk of shame documented by fans and first reported by E! News.

The replies were a bonfire. “Wow, Nebraska. Such an inconsiderate post,” one user wrote, offering that rare sports social media combo of congratulations with a side of exasperation. Another called the image “disgusting,” adding that Taylor, love her or loathe the playlists she dominates, is a human being who deserves basic respect. You know it is bad when strangers on X become the voice of reason. Receipts exist, and they circulated widely before the vanishing act, which counts as corroboration in 2025 internet terms. Add E! News’ write up to the pile and the facts are pretty much locked in.

Here is the context the algorithm refuses to learn. Taylor and Travis announced their engagement on Aug. 26, sharing several photos from the proposal. It was their first joint public appearance post announcement when they turned up at Arrowhead for Nebraska versus Cincinnati, joined by Patrick Mahomes, Brittany Mahomes, and Jason Kelce in the suite. In other words, the camera finds followed them everywhere, and so did the think pieces. Taylor herself already telegraphed how she handles all this noise. “Something can be about me, my name can be in the actual headline, and it can still be none of my business,” she said on the Aug. 13 episode of New Heights, Travis’ podcast with Jason. Translation, she is not wasting a syllable on a mascot meme.

Still, brands keep trying it. Teams and schools love to flirt with edgelord humor until the crowd turns, at which point the strategy becomes rapid delete, no apology, and pretend it was a fever dream. Nebraska’s joke was predictable for another reason. Sports fandom is territorial, and mocking an opposing alum after a win is practically a seasonal ritual. Doing it with a photoshopped engagement image though, especially one that reframes a private milestone into a public dunk, is where good taste taps out. It is the kind of tone deafness that gets a double ratio before lunch.

For anyone somehow just tuning in, this relationship timeline writes itself. Travis tried the friendship bracelet gambit at Taylor’s Kansas City tour stop in July 2023. He whiffed on the handoff, told the story on New Heights, then invited her to a Chiefs game in the most casual way possible on The Pat McAfee Show. By September, the appearances began, and the mustache era made cameos in pop culture memory. Fast forward, the engagement photos drop Aug. 26, and two days later a college program decides to chase clout on the back of the most famous pop star alive. Of course it imploded.

The lesson, as usual, is not complicated. When your joke needs a delete button before the end of the night, it was not worth posting. The Huskers’ social team gave the internet a layup, fans sank it, and the account retreated into the safe zone. Meanwhile, Taylor and Travis keep ignoring the static while turning stadiums into photo ops, which is a reminder that attention economies always pay the biggest dividends to the people who did not ask for the brand banter in the first place.

What happens next is painfully obvious. Either the team apologizes with a Notes app message about missing the mark, or this becomes one more cautionary screenshot brands use during the next social media training. Keep one eye on the Huskers feed and the other on New Heights, just in case this gets an eyebrow raise on air. Anyway, place your bets on which school account forgets this lesson by next weekend.

At this point, should we even pretend to be surprised?

Sources: Celebrity Storm and E! News, University of Nebraska Football on X, New Heights podcast