Kate Scott (L) and Mike Golic.

There’s been lots of discussion about what’s ahead for Mike Golic following his exit from ESPN after 17 years in January, and following his recent discussion of that company not wanting him back even at a lower rate of pay. Golic did host trivia show “The Fan Exam” for Learfield IMG College last fall while still calling games for ESPN, but other announcements on what’s ahead for him had been limited. He did tell Richard Deitsch of The Athletic last month that he was “deciding between a couple of different podcasts, a couple of different college football things, and something that I think will be a lot of fun.” And now Learfield IMG has announced one of those college football projects, which will see Golic serve as analyst for a national weekly college radio package this fall alongside play-by-play broadcaster Kate Scott. Here’s more from that on Learfield’s affiliate resources site:

College Football Saturday Night

NETWORK PROGRAMMING
Kate Scott Play-By-Play ​
Mike Golic Football Analyst​
Special guests live each week ​
13 football games – each Saturday night during the season​
46 thirty-second units of local inventory​
No pre-game show / short post-game ​
Just premium college football with fun personality driven play-by-play
Kate Scott and Mike Golic customized promos available
Fully automatable

More details in there include that it’s a one-year deal for affiliates, that they’ll need to carry at least eight of the 13 games, that blackout restrictions will apply depending on teams and markets, and that streaming rights are available (but with a 75-mile geofence).

For Golic, this seems to combine a couple of things that have worked for him in the past. He’s spoken frequently about his love of radio, which was seen through his long Mike and Mike run with Mike Greenberg and then the follow-up Golic and Wingo with Trey Wingo. He also spoke with Deitsch about how much he enjoyed calling college football games for ESPN last year, and about how that analyst assignment actually came from him asking ESPN for it after they cancelled Golic and Wingo. And Golic still has a large fanbase out there, so there will be people interested to hear him on these calls, and there should be a lot of good games here given Learfield IMG’s wide-ranging rights deals and the Saturday night timeslot.

This is also a notable move for Scott, who’s been making lots of history as a play-by-play voice recently. Scott (who has had a long run in sports media, including doing FanHouse Minute videos for AOL FanHouse more than a decade ago)’s play-by-play work over the past few years includes 49ers preseason games on Bay Area station KNBR, Pac-12 Networks regular-season football games, a NBCSN NHL game, a Golden State Warriors’ game on Bay Area station 95.7 The Game, and more. Many of those roles had her as the first woman to do play-by-play for that particular team or broadcast. She’ll also be calling Olympic basketball for NBC this summer, and she also currently hosts the “Morning Roast” radio show on 95.7 The Game with Bonta Hill and Joe Shasty. We’ll see how she does calling college football games with Golic this fall.

[Learfield IMG College; Scott photo at above left from 95.7 The Game, Golic photo at above right from Brian Spurlock/USA Today Sports]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.