Barstool's college football podcast world got flipped upside down this week. Brandon Walker and Kayce Smith spent nearly 7 years building Unnecessary Roughness into appointment listening for CFB degenerates, and they closed it out with a 2-hour finale that dropped early Wednesday morning, teasing a 'major announcement' the whole way through.
What a run, @bfw. 🥹 I got to talk CFB with my close friend for 7 years. I’m so proud of the little world we built and SO thankful for all the listeners (even the haters). I can’t wait to watch this man soar. There’s nobody like Brandon. 💙
That announcement turned out to be exactly what longtime listeners had been bracing for: Walker is going solo. The Brandon Walker College Football Show launches Aug. 3 on the same YouTube channel and social handles that used to house Unnecessary Roughness, running Monday through Thursday in August before settling into a 3-day-a-week cadence once the season kicks off. Interviews, guests, phone calls and voicemails are all part of the plan, and Liam Blutman is sticking around to help build it out.
But the launch date wasn't even the most interesting part of the week. On the same day the news broke, Walker sat down on Barstool Yak and dropped a line that had nothing to do with podcast scheduling and everything to do with where he actually wants to end up.
“Eventually I’m going back to Mississippi” -BFW
"Eventually I'm going back to Mississippi" is the kind of line that could've been a throwaway if it weren't for the follow-up. A fan pushed for specifics in the replies, asking whether Walker's annual CFB win-total picks would debut on the new show, and in a separate reply to that same thread Walker actually pinned down a timeline for the move itself: "usually around early August," he wrote, which lines up almost exactly with when the new show is set to premiere. That's not a coincidence anyone should sleep on -- the guy is telling you the launch and the relocation are basically happening at the same time.
There's also a wrinkle involving Mark Titus. According to the Yak conversation, Walker said Titus is planning to leave for Los Angeles before Walker himself heads to Mississippi, which paints a picture of a chunk of Barstool's audio talent scattering out of the New York studios at the same time.
None of this changes what made Unnecessary Roughness work for 7 years -- Walker and Smith built one of the more trusted college football podcasts in the space, and Smith isn't disappearing, she's shifting toward other Barstool CFB coverage. But for Walker, this is a full reset: new show, new format, and evidently a new zip code. Aug. 3 is now circled for two reasons -- that's when the Brandon Walker College Football Show goes live, and roughly when the man himself starts trading the city for Mississippi.