ESPN college football and NFL analyst Booger McFarland
Sports Media with Richard Deitsch
Audacy
4.5 • 757 Ratings
🗓️ 3 November 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Episode 559 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features ESPN college football and NFL analyst Booger McFarland. In this podcast McFarland discusses working at ESPN for 11 years and how he has been able to find his place at ESPN; how to morph between NFL and college football content; why Brian Kelly was fired by LSU and how he sees the LSU Football job; why Indiana has become a football power and whether it can be sustained; McFarland's top NFL teams so far and why the race is wide open; how he sees sports gambling in in both pro and college sports; the biggest card game he ever played on a plane, and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Sports Media Podcast. |
| 0:09.0 | I'm your host, Richard Deich. |
| 0:10.0 | My producer is Patrick Antonetti. |
| 0:12.0 | One guest this week, but someone I've gotten to know who works at ESPN, who I think has just done fantastic work, has a really, really interesting story as well. |
| 0:22.3 | Hoger McFarland, a familiar name to those of you who listen to this podcast, is an NFL and |
| 0:27.4 | college football analyst for ESPN and ABC. |
| 0:30.6 | You see him every Saturday during their college football coverage, and the same with Sunday |
| 0:36.0 | as well. |
| 0:37.1 | Also, he works the NFL draft. So it's kind of a rare |
| 0:41.4 | person just in the business who can float between college and the NFL as seamlessly as |
| 0:46.2 | Bougar does. Uh, but he does it very well. I am happy to welcome him back to the sports |
| 0:50.3 | media podcast. Buger, how are you? I'm doing good, R.D. How are you, buddy? |
| 1:12.2 | I'm good. So here's where I want to start. I think those would be interesting for listeners. You've now worked at ESPN for 11 years. That is honestly, that's a lifetime when it comes to a network broadcasting job. You've worked with a lot of people. Like, the average is far less in terms of like sort of being at one place. |
| 1:14.3 | So I just want to ask you broadly to start. Like, the average is far less in terms of like sort of being at one |
| 1:11.8 | place. So I just want to ask you broadly to start. Why do you think you've been able to find |
| 1:16.2 | success or find your place at ESPN? I think it's a couple of things. Number one, I've been |
| 1:21.8 | able to work with a lot of people. You know, my personality fits with pretty much anyone. I don't take myself too seriously. I understand |
| 1:30.5 | how to get along. I understand how to talk sports without taking it personal. And more importantly, |
| 1:39.0 | I've been able to diversify and not just do one thing. Yes, I cover football, college and pro, but I've done radio |
| 1:47.8 | with Mike and Mike before. I started out on the SEC network. I started out with local college football. |
| 1:52.4 | I've been able to do national college football. I've been able to do NFL. I've been able to do |
| 1:56.1 | NFL draft. We can talk about a number of different things on a number of different platforms. And so I think |
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