Mike Golic Jr & Sr Talk New ‘The Golics’ ESPN Show, Notre Dame & More w/Rich

The Golics are back on ESPN Radio, and Mike Golic Sr. wanted it established early that he holds a distinction no other host in the country can claim.

"I'm the only host who has changed the diapers of his other co-host," he said. "Someone beat that."

He conceded it says nothing about the quality of the show. The Golics runs from 10 a.m. to noon Eastern, Monday through Friday, following Unsportsmanlike and leading into this one, with father and son usually broadcasting from separate cities and occasionally sharing a studio.

Week one put them under the same roof, and Golic Jr. has notes.

"He is a very needy house guest," Jr. said, before laying out a grocery run that reads like a stakeout. Sr. has been publicly type 2 diabetic for years and has done real work getting his weight down and getting off a lot of his medication. That did not stop him from making a beeline for the Lunchables in frozen foods, palming a single-serving box of mini cookies at the checkout, and collecting cupcakes on the way through the bakery.

"I'm like, dude, I'm trying to keep you in one piece during this trip," Jr. said. His read on the situation was that his father sensed an absence of supervision and moved on it.

"He smelled what he thought was weakness and an opening," Jr. said. "And instead ran into someone who is very much an ally in my dad's health."

The eggs story sealed it. Jr. cooked eggs and toast after a show, looked over, and watched his father shovel in a Hostess cupcake at 9:45 in the morning.

Sr.'s defense was thrift.

"It would have gotten stale had I not," he said. "That's wasteful."

His broader theory is that none of this is about health at all. "He just wants to control me," Sr. said. "For the years of me controlling him as a father, it's the reverse thing going on now."

The origin story of them working together goes back further than most people realize, and it started with a fax. Golic Jr. committed to Notre Dame live on Mike and Mike, signing what was actually a blank piece of paper because he had already sent the real letter of intent that morning.

That was family tradition. Sr. said all his kids signed on the show, including his son Jake at Notre Dame and his daughter Sydney, who swam there.

Jr. knew early that this was the job. At Notre Dame he and teammate Brandon Newman handled behind-the-scenes digital content back when that was still in its infancy, which was his first real time in front of a microphone.

The lesson he remembers from his father, though, came on a tour of the ESPN offices in Bristol. Sr. had live reads to record, so he stuck his son in a side room and had him do read-throughs.

"The first thing he had me do was learn how to make sure the bills got paid," Jr. said.

Rich, who has watched Sr. work Radio Row, granted the man his due. He also noted that Sr. and Greeny have a radio show in the Hall of Fame, which Jr. framed as an inherited problem.

"We've already got the bar set for Dad," Jr. said. "Much like my attempted NFL playing career, I'm just trying to get to the building every day and have my ID badge still work."

Asked for the story of the coming NFL season, the two split by conference. Sr. went to attrition, pointing at Kansas City, Buffalo, Cincinnati and Baltimore in the AFC, plus New England and Denver last year, and the Bears in the NFC. Two of those teams finished 14-3 and Chicago went 11-6. His question is which one keeps climbing and which one takes a step back.

Jr. had a shorter version. Who is going to catch the Rams?

He drew the parallel to the Dodgers deliberately, calling the Myles Garrett acquisition arguably more impactful, and noted the Rams have the defending Super Bowl champion in their own division. If San Francisco can keep anybody healthy, the NFC West becomes a juggernaut.

"They're back to the bleep them picks model," Jr. said, describing a team all in on 2026.

Rich asked him to imagine an offensive line meeting room the week of a Rams game if Aaron Donald returns and lines up alongside Garrett. Jr., a former guard and center, did not sugarcoat it.

"You're not going to sleep a lot that week," he said. His framework is that the best units have one player who is worth two. "So if you've got Myles Garrett and Aaron Donald, well, now you got two guys that are equal to four, and I'm starting to get into the math that's not good for an offensive line that's only got five guys."

Everything after that is picking your poison. Keep the tight end in, chip with a back, double from the inside, and accept that whatever you solve creates a problem somewhere else. Rich pointed out that a guard's whole week becomes hoping the protection slides his way. And behind it all sit Kobie Turner and Byron Young and a secondary reinforced by McDuffie, buying the rush another beat.

Which is how the 17-0 question came up, and how quickly it got answered. Jr. walked the schedule, from the opener against San Francisco in Melbourne through a Monday nighter with the Giants, trips to Denver and Philadelphia, Buffalo at home on a Monday night, then after the week 12 bye a stretch that includes Green Bay, a Thursday night with Kansas City, a return trip to San Francisco, Dallas at home, and two of the last three against Seattle.

"Undefeated is crazy to think, and it's the most injured sport," Jr. said. "You can't prognosticate injuries. So someone's going to get hurt. It's just a matter of when."

The Notre Dame portion went about how Rich's Notre Dame conversations usually go, which is to say it ended at Rudy.

Rich has a standing position. Rudy was offsides.

Sr. cannot personally litigate it, since he arrived in 1981, but his brother Bob was a freshman on the team in 1975 and was there. Asked what Bob would actually say, Sr. offered the family's preferred phrasing.

"I know the term is he got a good jump."

The bigger news is that the real Rudy Ruettiger has heard about all this, and according to Rudy and Hoosiers director David Anspaugh, he would like to fight Rich about it. Anspaugh also passed along that Ruettiger lives next door to either Mike Tyson or Floyd Mayweather in Vegas, a distinction Rich correctly identified as meaningful in terms of who is training him.

Jr. gave up more ground on the film than expected, admitting there is a lot of Hollywood in Rudy. Anspaugh's own assessment, relayed by Rich, is that Rudy is practically a Ken Burns documentary next to Hoosiers, which was invented nearly whole cloth apart from Milan High actually winning.

That comparison exposed the real scandal of the interview. Golic Jr. has never seen Hoosiers.

"I don't know if I can have somebody host a show that leads into mine who's not watched Hoosiers," Rich said.

Jr.'s defense was that everyone is entitled to one position that defies logic. His college teammate Dane Chris, now 37 with two kids, maintains he has never chewed gum in his life, which Jr. finds farcical and unprovable, and which has now calcified into permanent identity.

"That's me with Hoosiers," he said.