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The return of Mike Golic Sr. and Mike Golic Jr. to ESPN Radio has been one of the bigger stories in sports broadcasting this year. The father-and-son duo enjoyed a triumphant, smooth reunion with The Worldwide Leader in Sports earlier this month. The Golics airs 10 a.m.–noon ET weekdays and is also simulcast live on the ESPN App. This is a general resumption of the show that previously aired on FanDuel Sports Network and the DraftKings Network. The ESPN version of the show made its debut on Aug. 3. It marked the first time Mike Golic Sr. had been back at the network since he last signed off six years ago. We caught up with the Golics to discuss their return. Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity. How have these shows been going? Mike Golic Jr.: “It’s easy chemistry with someone I’ve known for going on 37 years now. But also, just being back with a team at ESPN Radio full of people we’ve worked with before. We had great partners and great teammates at these other stops. But I think I’ve said in a few different conversations we’ve had, we just don’t have that getting-to-know-you phase. “I played for four offensive line coaches in five years in college. So every spring, I’m learning how someone new communicates. I’m learning how someone likes to coach technique and how to apply it. Now, we’re going back in, and we know how these guys do business. They know us. And I think it’s made the process of getting ready, planning shows, and executing them a lot easier. Has it been emotional, and does it feel like a homecoming? Mike Golic Sr.: “It wasn’t really emotional. Quite honestly, it was surprising. I did not think this opportunity would come back again. We had other opportunities, but ESPN was always at the top of the list. So I looked at it as, you’re right, more of a homecoming. I started my career at ESPN, and I still have some years left in me, for sure. But it would be very nice to end my career at ESPN. Mike’s got a longer way to go. I’m certainly more on the back nine than my son is… To start out with ESPN right after my NFL career and then, hopefully, finish with them will be, to me, a very cool thing.” Welcome back, @golic. — The Golics (@thegolics) August 7, 2026 Welcome back, @mikegolicjr. Welcome back, Town Crier. What a first week. Thanks to all of you for tuning in! pic.twitter.com/7xNAtBQvre Could you elaborate further on Mike Foss‘ role in making this reunion happen? Mike Golic Jr.: “When Mike called and pitched me on the idea and asked if we’d be interested, I wasn’t sure if that opportunity was ever going to come. So extremely grateful that he trusted us with that, that he still thought enough of us. And the relationship we had, that we might be a fit despite the fact that we had left and gone and had what we thought was the last of our time at ESPN. He felt like this could be an opportunity to bring us back there and something that worked for everybody involved. So, super grateful for that and super grateful for that relationship.” This show is rooted in nostalgia, but how would you describe it to someone who hasn’t listened to it before? Mike Golic Jr.: “What we offer in terms of that relationship of father and son outside of the nostalgia of what dad’s career has been is just a look into a relationship that everybody has or that so many people have had. The number of notes we got at the end of last time from fathers and sons, mothers and sons, and mothers and daughters who said, ‘I get to work with my son or daughter, or mom or dad, at our place of work. And when I turn on and listen to you guys, it feels like listening to us talk about what’s going on in our lives. It feels like listening to us talk about sports in our living room.’ So I’d say the environment we’re trying to create feels like you’re parachuting in on your family, but we’re pulling you up with our family. And we want to make it fun. We want to make it easy. But it also is going to have an easy generational divide that I think a lot of people can understand.” What about you, Mike Golic Sr.? Mike Golic Sr.: “That conversation and the generational gap we have. I could see kids rolling their eyes at their parents like Mike rolls his eyes at me when I say something. I’ve been pretty consistent throughout as far as how I want to do a show. I want to be relatable to the audience. I never want to talk at them. I want to talk to them. I want us to have a conversation (as if) we’re sitting in a restaurant or at a bar, and we’re having a conversation with the listeners.” Sloppy Joe’s have done nothing but care for the people. — The Golics (@thegolics) August 11, 2026 What is your most underrated food?@mikegolicjr | @golic https://t.co/eDVL5CWHn5 pic.twitter.com/2hImg3wyrQ Could you elaborate? Mike Golic Sr.: “I think one of the coolest things when Mike talked about hearing what people had to say about the show, through the iterations when I was with Tony Bruno, then most of the time with (Mike Greenberg), and then with Trey (Wingo) and Mike, was the comfort in turning on the radio and listening to us. You knew you were going to get sports conversation. You knew you might learn something, and you were probably going to laugh a little bit as well. There was never any need to turn it off because things got too blue or too political. You didn’t have to worry about that. This was going to be sports talk, family talk, food talk, pop culture talk.” What is the biggest non-sports-related argument you guys get into? Mike Golic Sr.: “Mike is more adventurous when it comes to trying foods than I am. I am pretty much basic. And we do have a lot of food discussion because we are foodies. There’s no doubt about that. But I am definitely more basic. I don’t like mixing and matching as much as Mike does, so that will be a disagreement.” What do you say to that, Mike Golic Jr.? Mike Golic Jr.: “I moved to Los Angeles four years ago. I grew up in central Connecticut, which isn’t a bastion of intermingling cultures in the food scene. I get out here. There are a million different restaurants, a million different kinds of food. And I love trying all of it. It’s been a ton of fun. My dad comes out here, and I’m struggling to think about where to take him to dinner. That’s actually going to serve food that he’d be willing to eat and try.” Mike Golic Sr. replaces Ryan Harris as Notre Dame football’s radio color analyst https://t.co/CJnr4Qgfxo — Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 5, 2026 For Mike Golic Sr., what does it mean to be the new Notre Dame football analyst? Mike Golic Sr.: “It’s a bucket-list thing. There’s no doubt about it. I’m always asked, ‘Who’s your favorite team? Was it the Eagles because you played mostly for the Eagles?’ I always say it’s Notre Dame. That’s where I met my wife. That’s where all my kids went. That’s where my brothers went. That’s where my nieces go to Saint Mary’s. A lot of my life since 1975, when my brother Bob was a freshman there, has been built around Notre Dame. That’s like family to our family. We have season tickets there to watch games. So when the opportunity came up, I was like, ‘Wow.’ I didn’t think this opportunity would come up. I certainly do appreciate their faith in me to do the job. I’m so much more excited to do this from my end.” For Mike Golic Jr., what does it mean to cohost a Notre Dame podcast, The Echoes, with Jessica Smetana? Mike Golic Jr.: “Her and I have always been kind of the other half of the same brain, so a chance to have a conversation that, quite honestly, we usually have via text during every Notre Dame game anyway, in front of a microphone, to share it with fans, too, was a really fun opportunity for a place that has given us so much and a place that was such an important part of all of our lives to get a chance now to discuss that. By the way, to do it at a time when the team is about as best positioned to compete for a national championship as they have been in my lifetime. “I’m a September 1989 baby, which means I have never seen a Notre Dame national championship. And so, the chance to have this coincide with a time when the team is as popular and as capable as ever is pretty cool.”