Mike Golic Sr. replaces Ryan Harris as Notre Dame football’s radio color analyst

Notre Dame announced Tuesday that Mike Golic Sr. will assume color analyst duties for its football radio broadcasts, supplanting Ryan Harris, who had occupied the chair since 2018, alongside returning play-by-play voice Tony Simeone and studio host Johnny Soper.

Golic anchored the defensive line for the Irish from 1981-984 before embarking on a decade-long NFL career with the Houston Oilers, Philadelphia Eagles and Miami Dolphins, and his son, Mike Golic Jr., later manned the offensive line at Notre Dame from 2008-12.

“Some places never leave your heart; Notre Dame is one of those places for me,” Golic said in the university’s announcement. “To now have the opportunity to serve on the radio team with Tony and Johnny is both humbling and exciting.”

Golic has occupied nearly this exact chair before, just for a different program and a different partner. Learfield IMG previously tapped him back in 2021 to serve as analyst on a newly launched national college football radio package, College Football Saturday Night, pairing him with play-by-play voice Kate Scott for a 13-game slate spanning marquee Saturday nights across the sport.

Harris, whom Golic supplants, announced his own exit back in May, writing on social media that he intended to devote the coming year to “pursuing NFL and television opportunities” while completing his final semester of law school at the University of Colorado. Harris had held the analyst seat since 2018, when he himself succeeded longtime predecessor Allen Pinkett, calling games alongside Simeone since 2024 and, prior to that, six seasons opposite Paul Burmeister. Beyond his Notre Dame duties, Harris moonlighted as a color commentator for Westwood One’s NFL radio broadcasts and covered Denver Broncos preseason games for Altitude Sports.

Barely 48 hours before Notre Dame’s announcement, Golic and his son debuted The Golics on ESPN Radio, marking his return to the network almost six years after his previous program, Golic & Wingo, was axed. That homecoming was anything but assured. Golic’s original ESPN tenure spanned a remarkable 25 years, beginning with Mike & Mike, the morning institution he co-hosted alongside Mike Greenberg for 18 years, a partnership so influential it earned enshrinement in the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2016, only to fracture under mounting acrimony and dissolve in 2017. Golic subsequently paired with Trey Wingo and his son on Golic & Wingo through 2020, when ESPN pulled the plug on that iteration as well. By Golic’s own account, the network’s appetite for reconciliation afterward was virtually nonexistent; he told Richard Deitsch in 2021 that ESPN wouldn’t even entertain negotiations with his agent at a discounted rate.

What followed was a nomadic stretch spanning three different homes in as many years. Golic and his son launched Golic & Golic on DraftKings in 2023, relocated to FanDuel Sports Network once DraftKings opted against renewal, and endured a mere 10-month stay there before FanDuel TV announced a sweeping 20-month wind-down that eliminated roughly 100 positions. ESPN Radio marked their fourth stop in this odyssey, with the Golics inheriting the 10 a.m. to noon slot Greenberg himself once commanded before pivoting to TV full time.

Golic Jr., for his part, remains far from idle beyond the new radio venture and his own Notre Dame lineage. He currently serves as TNT Sports’ lead game analyst for Big 12 football and co-hosts a separate podcast, The Echoes: A Podcast on Notre Dame, alongside Jessica Smetana. He’s also become a leader in the insane fast-food/junk-food influencer space.

Between him and his father, the Golic name is already accounted for across three separate outlets covering college football this fall, and that’s before whatever else the two of them take on together.