ESPN is eating up yet another beloved college football program.
Josh Pate, the host of Josh Pate’s College Football Show, is reportedly joining Will Compton and Taylor Lewan, co-hosts of the Bussin’ With The Boys podcast, in moving the latter show to ESPN with a similar philosophy to the network’s College Gameday program, which shoots live from a different campus location for every episode.
According to the report from Front Office Sports, the new program will air Fridays from college campuses across the U.S. as ESPN looks to expand on its college football market with a show geared toward the weekend crowd while also accommodating a real shift toward weeknight football.
The Big 12 plays several weeknight games in 2026, including Texas Tech and Houston holding a Week 3 matchup on Friday, Sept. 18, in Lubbock (originally scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 19).
As with the Pat McAfee explosion, ESPN is clearly attaching fresher, younger faces to its college football catalog, and this latest addition comes after a sweeping round of layoffs, which saw names like Cam Newton, Karl Ravech and Ryan Clark among others. ESPN, owned by Disney, acquired the NFL Network, NFL RedZone and NFL Fantasy Football from the league for $3 billion earlier this year, and the staffing changes are part of that transition, according to an newly released memo.
College football is a major market for anyone involved in sports media, and ESPN, adding another campus-based live program to its lineup, is betting on its fall coverage growing in size and scale with a new “pregame” show dedicated to previewing the coming Saturday slate, as well as highlighting such weeknight football games as noted above.
It’s a good deal for Pate, Compton and Lewan (paid travel, bigger resources and a presumable payday to go along with it), and they’d be silly for turning it down.
