Bussin’ With the Boys makes Tempe its last stop on its Spring Tour
In less than five years, Bussin’ with the Boys evolved from a side fun project by NFL players Will Compton & Taylor Lewan to one of the most viewed sports podcasts in the industry and a staple of the Barstool Sports enterprise. Blazing their own trail, the tandem has always looked for innovative ideas to enhance their podcast, and their latest endeavor, coaching a college team in their Spring Game, will now bring them to Tempe and be part of Arizona State’s festivities this Saturday.
The Bussin’ with the Boys podcast averages nearly 1 million downloads per month, and its YouTube page is on pace to surpass 50 million views this year. Podcast topics range from exclusive NFL stories to candid chats with personalities from all industries to out-of-left-field hot takes on things typically only discussed behind closed doors.
“We started the podcast in 2019,” said Compton. “I just finished my, I think it was my seventh year with the Tennessee Titans, and Taylor just extended for the biggest contract in NFL history for an offensive lineman at the time. Essentially did enough episodes to last us to the season, and a few of our clips would go viral, like (head coach) Mike Vrabel, when he talks about cutting off his piece to win the Super Bowl. We had (All-Pro cornerback) Jalen Ramsey on, and he was talking about how he would get in the minds of wide receivers and how he used to DM guys in college, and our podcast started to pick up a lot of traction. And that’s when Barstool had started to recruit us a little bit to eventually partner up with them in February of 2020.”
And the podcast name is anything but a cute play on words, but rather a clear representation of the podcast’s roots and its undeniable authenticity element.
“I had written in my journal since 2015, or 16, that I wanted to be being one of the first active NFL players/coaches because I wanted to be a coach at the time,” Compton recalled, “and I wanted to have a podcast with a million downloads. That was what was written down. And then, when I finished the season with the Titans, I started to get the itch to actually want to do the podcast. Taylor was really instrumental because once you get your best friend doing something with you like that, it takes off the weight and mitigates that fear that you have going into it. So, once he was on board, we basically just started working on the idea and found an abandoned bus behind this warehouse of this production company we were working with at the time.
“The production company put us on the bus, Taylor loved the bus, and he said, “I’ll put 10 grand into it. And if it doesn’t work out, I will just sit it in my backyard because I think it’s awesome. But if it works, then we can look at using this for our studio.’
“And sure enough, it was the studio since day one. We were in a gravel parking lot. Because the bus didn’t run, we operated off a generator. We would hook up the generator to an RV business. So, when families would come to town, and we would plug in when they weren’t plugged in. We would get our Internet off of a hotspot of our phones. We’ve eventually moved up, and now we’re in a warehouse and everything else. But yeah, that’s essentially how it started.”
The humble, no-frills beginnings of the podcast created an interview environment where Compton and Lewan were not only able to land a diverse lineup of sports and non-sports guests but also an atmosphere that was conducive for its guests to be as transparent as possible, knowing that they were talking to podcasts hosts who were interested in an honest conversation rather than catchy headlines to promote their brand.
“In the beginning, we wanted to play to our strengths and talk about what we which is football,” Compton explained. “But ultimately, we always had the idea of, anybody can come on the bus, whether you’re an athlete, whether you’re an artist, a comedian, an actor doesn’t matter…we just wanted to kind of utilize our network, and build a platform that allows all these people to authentically be themselves. We talk about being for the boys every time somebody comes on. We’re always letting them know, ‘Hey, anything you say, and you might not want on there when you’re driving back home, just let us know, and we’ll cut it out.’ We’re never trying to clickbait anybody or get anybody which allows them to feel comfortable talking to us.
“I feel that’s the appeal to it all. As it’s grown over time, we’ve kind of started to figure out segments during times of the year when we talk a little bit more about football. But a lot of it is based around our interviews with guests and everything else. And now we built up such a good niche audience, to where Taylor and I will just do the podcast sometimes with ourselves and engage with our fan base.”
Since mid-March, the podcast has been on and off the road for several weeks, visiting the spring practices of South Carolina, Texas, Ohio State, LSU, and Colorado. Compton said that the podcast crew has enjoyed this spring tour because it has offered them a chance to meet and greet its fans, who have naturally been a significant aspect of the podcast’s growth. Their visit to Tempe this weekend will be different since both Compton and Lewan will coach ASU’s squad in their spring game.
The name Taylor Lewan should be familiar to fans in the valley, as the 2009 class prospect who was a two-time First-Team All-Big Ten at Michigan is arguably the most successful offensive lineman to come out of the state of Arizona this century. Lewan prepped at Scottsdale Chaparral High School, whose head coach was at the time. Charlie Ragle is ASU’s current special teams coordinator, and the Sun Devils’ head coach, Kenny Dillingham, served as an assistant coach on the Firebirds’ staff when Lewan played there. Needless to say, that connection between these parties paved the way for the Bussin’ with the Boys podcast to be a prominent feature in Arizona State’s Spring Game.
“When we were asking our fans where they wanted us to go in the spring, Coach D reached out to us on Twitter and said, ‘We will build the spring game and brand it around you guys.’ He wanted to make a splash play on it. So, we started DM’ing back and forth, talking about building this Spring Game with Bussin’ with the Boys, which I thought was a cool wrinkle. Michigan (Lewan) and Nebraska (Compton), which are our alma maters, are starting to see it this way. These colleges are seeing that these young athletes take a liking to the podcast and the show. And with a whole new NIL world, I feel like bringing attention to it all; that’s essentially what Coach D is doing in his first year.
“This is our first year actually coaching a Spring Game, and it’s gonna be awesome. And then, hopefully, from there, we can just grow off because, obviously, being in the collegiate space is beneficial. As we transition and get done playing football, this podcast allows us to stay in it as much as we want to be in and around football and around the boys without having to become coaches and put all that time and energy that these guys have to do. This is our way of staying close to the game.”
The podcast hosts are scheduled to interview Dillingham, defensive back Jordan Clark, and quarterback Jaden Rashada among others, for the show they will tape on campus this weekend.
“We’re trying to fit a lot in because we land like at eight in the morning on Saturday,” Compton stated, “and we’ll be hitting the ground running doing interviews, doing media, and then coaching our respective teams for the Spring Game. Our platform allows everybody to see like the personalities of the head coach or what the players have gone through. I know the quarterback has a really interesting story with how all the NIL stuff worked at Florida, and now he and now he’s that he’s now at ASU. It’s stories like that that I feel like we’ll be able to pull back layers on, and guys will feel comfortable to call to talk to us.
“Fans are able to expect that authenticity with the guests that we have. As far as the Spring Game, we’re just gonna have fun, man. A lot of energy and high vibes, and I can’t wait to when we get to give three-minute speeches to our teams as head coaches. It’s gonna be a cool atmosphere, and we’ll get to be around them and have some fun and bring some energy.”
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