This Friday, join us at Maggiano's to welcome Tony Barnhart, "Mr. College Football," for our annual preview of the upcoming college football season. The 2025 season will be Tony Barnhart’s 50th and last covering college football for radio, television and the internet. On May 1, Tony announced that he would work the 2025 season and then retire. He will spend the season doing a final tour of the SEC and turning it into his seventh book “Mr. College Football: 50 years of SEC memories.” The book will be published by UGA Press with a release date of December of 2026.

Tony was a college football analyst for eight years with the SEC Network. Previously he was a college football analyst for CBS Sports and a reporter for ESPN’s College Game Day. He spent 25 years at The Atlanta-Journal Constitution as a college football writer. His other books include the autobiographies of Vince Dooley and Larry Munson. His sixth book “The 19 of Greene” was released in 2023 and is available on Amazon.com. Tony is a 1976 graduate of Grady College, the school of Journalism at the University of Georgia. He has been inducted into the school’s Grady Fellowship, signifying career achievement and contributions to Journalism. In 2016 Tony received the Contribution to Amateur Football Award from the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame. In 1999 Tony was named the Georgia Sports Writer of the Year. On May 22, 2021 Tony was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.

Tony and his wife, Maria, will celebrate their 48th wedding anniversary on Aug. 14, 2025.  Their daughter (Sara) is a “Double Dawg” with both undergraduate and law school degrees from Georgia. She is Assistant General Counsel for Cox Enterprises. She supports their Entertainment and Media businesses, including the AJC. Their son-in-law, Brian is a proud Michigan State grad.  Tony and Maria have two grandchildren, Sloane (12) and Beau (4).