Prepare to hear a lot of Shaboozey this upcoming college football season.
The artist and Grammy-winner who blew up in 2024 with “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is continuing his run of success. This latest accomplishment? One of his songs has been chosen by ESPN to be their anthem for the 2026-27 college football season. A track from Shaboozey’s latest album, The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales, has been tapped to play each and every college football Saturday:
“The return of college football brings new excitement, new hope and of course, a new song. “High Noon” by Shaboozey and Gunna is this year’s anthem for College Football on ESPN.”
This partnership makes it 13 seasons that ESPN has called upon a popular artist to provide them with a college football anthem for the season. Shaboozey joins the likes of Jelly Roll, Post Malone, Fall Out Boy, X Ambassadors, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Lauren Alaina, Imagine Dragons, Marshmello & Juice WRLD, and DJ Snake & Rick Ross among others to provide a theme song for college football on ESPN.
Here’s the full list of all the songs that have ever been crowned as college football anthems:
2025–26: “don’t wait run fast” by mgk
2024–25: “Get By” by Jelly Roll
2023–24: “Something Real” by Post Malone
2022–23: “The Emperor” by Yungblud
2021–22: “Run It” by DJ Snake featuring Rick Ross & Rich Brian
2020–21: “Come & Go” by Juice WRLD & Marshmello
2019–20: “Let Go” by Judah & The Lion
2018–19: “Natural” by Imagine Dragons
2017–18: “Walk on Water” by Thirty Seconds to Mars
2016–17: “Collider” by X Ambassadors & Tom Morello
2015–16: “History” by Lauren Alaina
2014–15: “Centuries” by Fall Out Boy
Fans are excited that college football is set to return… but if you dive into the comment section of ESPN’s announcement, you’ll see that they aren’t overjoyed with the song selection for the anthem. Some are saying “High Noon” doesn’t bring the juice, as the kids are saying nowadays (actually, I don’t think they are saying that):
Why do yall pick the WORST music for CFB😭
— Auburn Central (@AUBCentral) July 31, 2026
Just terrible, what happened to the game I love? Zero excitement from a video that usually gives me chills.
Couldn’t have picked a worse song or person for this anthem
— Perry “Chip” Maxwell (@ChipJohnson01) July 31, 2026
No Goosebumps here. No offense to Shaboozey, but that song was kind of boring if the intent was to fire me up.
— C B (@CB969onRBR) July 31, 2026
you guys really do try to ruin everything holy sh*t
— korky122 (@korky122) July 31, 2026
An absolute lay-up to go with the trombone mix of “A Milli” that went viral on TikTok.
But ESPN screws up quite literally everything.
So not shocking.— Jeff (@JDeck2) July 31, 2026
Want to defend ESPN, but Shaboozey? Wtf are we doing
— Steven Sarkisian (@DuragatoryTex) July 31, 2026
Pretty low key song if generating excitement is what you’re after. Boring.
— Tracy Howell (@TXScraps) July 31, 2026
Hot garbage of a song. Bad way to start a full day and night of football.
— Chad Powell (@Danette72) July 31, 2026
3 straight years of mid country trap.. bring back centuries
— the blockCADE (@NBA90996502) July 31, 2026
3 years in a row we fumble the anthem. who’s in charge of picking the song??
— slime (@_slimeylildude1) July 31, 2026
Shoulda just tasked Ella Langley to create a song and it would’ve done numbers
— Jack (@jackedup4ball) July 31, 2026
Not a bad idea, actually… could have made Ella Langley the Carrie Underwood of College Football.
Was it a missed opportunity for ESPN to not go down the Ella route for the upcoming season? One could say that. Luke Combs also put out an album of bangers earlier this year, so any of those could have been plugged in as the college football anthem. But the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” decided to go with Shaboozey, and now, they are being accused of “fumbling the anthem” for a third year in a row.
ESPN kicks off their 2026-27 college football coverage on August 29, when UNC takes on TCU in Ireland.
