College football season is nearly here.
Forget last Saturday. It’s called Week 0 for a reason. Do you really want to believe the first game of the 2022 season was 3-9 Northwestern and 3-9 Nebraska playing halfway around the world?
Here at Barrett Sports Media, we are celebrating college football from a media angle. All week long, our editors and resident college football superfans, Arky Shea, Demetri Ravanos and Garrett Searight, will be looking at the best the media has to offer in terms of college football coverage.
The entire schedule is as follows:
MONDAY: Best Local Show
TUESDAY: Best National Radio Show
WEDNESDAY: Best College Football Podcast
THURSDAY: Best TV Show
FRIDAY: Best TV Play-by-Play Booth
College football fans demand content, and they aren’t going to wait for ESPN to devote 2 minutes to their favorite team or conference on SportsCenter to get it. We want something insightful, long-form, and on demand.
Podcasts are thriving in sports media and no sport has a wider variety of options than college football. From insiders to analysts to people that just know how to connect the dots from Spider-Man to Ryan Day, the medium is full of entertaining people talking about college football.
These are our choices for the best college football podcast.
THE SHUTDOWN FULLCAST by Demetri Ravanos
College football is our most gloriously dumb sport! I want a show that embraces and appreciates that. Enter The Shutdown Fullcast, the only show I have ever heard explain Georgia football using the Fourth Book of Maccabees. Holly Anderson, Spencer Hall, Jason Kirk, and Ryan Nanni know their stuff and know there is value in chaos. I genuinely look forward to Wednesdays. This is the one podcast I consume the second it hits my feed.
There is a level of creativity to The Fullcast that you won’t find on most shows. Could Andy Staples preview the ACC Coastal while sustaining a Jeff Goldbloom impersonation for nearly an hour? Did The Solid Verbal develop the theory that Mack Brown forces his opponents to shake his hand longer after a loss because it is how he feeds on their youth? SB Nation used to have the most fun college football coverage online. That ended the day it let The Shutdown Fullcast get away.
THE SOLID VERBAL by Arky Shea
It won’t take you long to become a member of the “Verballer-hood” once you give The Solid Verbal a chance. Unlike a lot of shows, you only need one episode to hook you. The combination of co-hosts Ty Hildenbrandt and Dan Rubenstein grab the ordinary fan with legitimate analysis of the college football world pretty quickly. They, quite astutely, span the country with their thoughts and give you more than enough “football” content to keep you satiated. But, it’s the parts outside the fray that make this show worth your download.
These two spend just as much effort into breaking down the bizarre tapestry that has long set college football apart from everything in this universe. The two subtly take you into a rabbit hole of silliness that you never truly realize you’re chest-deep in until it’s too late. Just take the story of the University of South Carolina looking for a new name for their live mascot as a great, very recent example. While naming suitable suggestions to replace the bird’s current name, Rubenstein suggested, earnestly, that the university embrace pageantry.
“I just think we need to incorporate a level of royalty to American college football live mascots,” Rubenstein would say. “We need to fully lean into what Texas A&M has done with Reveille. They’ve elevated her to a position of ceremonial authority.”
THE ANDY STAPLES SHOW by Garrett Searight
As a big college football fan, both figuratively and literally, The Andy Staples Show is my podcast. Staples is as clued in as any reporter in the sport, and I don’t know that I can remember a time I heard him say or report something that made me think “that ain’t true”.
Meanwhile, the cuisine of college football is an often slept on portion of the equation that makes it America’s finest sport. I don’t see anybody else focusing on their food during their podcasts. You know what I need to survive? Sustenance. Only one college football podcast is doing that, my friends. And its The Andy Staples Show.
