ESPN releases 2025 college football anthem featuring Machine Gun Kelly

ESPN unveiled its official song for the 2025 college football season on Thursday. The release came during a live hit on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show, courtesy of popular rapper Machine Gun Kelly.

“MGK,” whose real name is Colson Baker, debuted a previously unreleased track “Don’t Wait Run Fast” to be used as the official anthem of ESPN’s college football coverage during the 2025 season, which kicks off in three weeks from Saturday. During his appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, MGK revealed he wrote the song the day after his appearance at the Kansas City Chiefs‘ post-Super Bowl party following Super Bowl LIX last February, which the Philadelphia Eagles won 40-22.

Check it out below:

WE HAVE A NEW SONG FOR THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/beP5Evl2F4

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) July 31, 2025

“You know who doesn’t go to the after-parties of the team who lost? Players, girls, anybody,” MGK joked on The Pat McAfee Show. “Of course I was the headliner of it, … and as luck would have it I had to play an hour-set versus Quavo and Shaboozey got to play one song and dip. … For the past five years, I haven’t played in front of a crowd that, you know, wasn’t stoked. … And there were about four girls and I was playing a bunch of songs that I realized in that moment were kind of for girls. I could’ve really used a song with testosterone right now.”

ESPN’s college football anthem from MGK is different from the network’s SEC anthem featuring country music stars Luke Combs and Bailey Zimmerman. That will air during ESPN’s coverage of SEC games.

ESPN releases SEC Football anthem for 2025 season featuring Luke Combs, Bailey Zimmerman

ESPN unveiled its 2025 SEC football anthem that will play during the network’s coverage of SEC games this upcoming in a release on social media ahead of SEC Media Days in Atlanta earlier this month. The anthem will feature the song “Backup Plan,” a recently released single by Bailey Zimmerman with Luke Combs featured on it back in May.

Combs and Zimmerman released “Backup Plan” as a single back on May 2nd going into the summer. This is the latest collaboration for Combs with a song for the SEC while it’s the latest nod for a rising name in country with Zimmerman.

Media days is the sign that college football is nearly back. Now, when that new season kicks off in the Southeastern Conference, namely on ESPN, ABC, or the SEC Network, we know what song will come on at gametime with this anthem’s release on Monday.

— On3’s Sam Gillenwater contributed to this report.