Podcasts about Texas, United States

Burnt orange dominates. The Texas Longhorns draw more shows than any other subject on this page, and the feed replays a March basketball run in postgame form: Cam Heide's late shot to put away Gonzaga 74-68 and send Texas to the Sweet 16, a 68-66 escape against NC State on a Tremont Mark winner with 1.1 seconds left, then the 79-77 loss to Purdue on a Trey Kaufman-Wren tip-in with .7 seconds on the clock. Around that core sit the baseball Rangers, the Cowboys, Texas Tech and, in a collision of names the page has to live with, more than one show replaying the old Tales of the Texas Rangers radio dramas.

After sports come state politics and crime, then history, business and the backcountry. A good share of the listening is really city listening — Dallas sports radio, a Mansfield civic show, a South Texas border newspaper, a Lubbock parenting show — and those are named below for anyone who wants one town rather than the whole state.

What Texas is

Texas is the second-largest US state by area and population, running from the Gulf coast and the Rio Grande border with Mexico to the plains and desert of the west. Austin is the capital; Houston, San Antonio and Dallas are the largest cities. It was an independent republic from 1836 to 1845, a year its history shows keep returning to, and it is known for oil, cattle, football and a strong sense of itself as a place apart.

The Longhorns, from the couch and the press box

Locked On Longhorns is the solo, high-speed version: Brad Kellner running the day's news as a briefing, "your daily podcast on the Texas Longhorns" as he says on air, with a title run that shows what fills the days between games — Fan Day, an open practice, transfer Amari Evans arriving from Tennessee, way-too-early SEC rankings. The Gonzaga postgame is the excited end of his range; the Purdue title starts with HEARTBREAK.

On Texas Football is the roster-construction show. Its clips are recruiting and depth-chart material: Jerry Hamilton on why 2027 offensive lineman Jackson Cook's stock rose at an Under Armour camp in Dallas; a running-back order in which Hollywood Smothers, Riley Brown and Derek Cooper start to separate after two weeks of spring practice; Brian Irwin calling the transfer era 'the wild west' and a 'category five hurricane'. The Craig Way Show, from AM 1300 The Zone (KVET-AM), is where the athletic department speaks for itself, and in the feed that means baseball: Jim Schlossnagel calling this the "golden age of college baseball" because talent is staying in school, Ty Harrington on why Texas keeps winning series after losing Friday openers.

The other scoreboards

Rangers Today is Jeff Wilson and John Moore on the baseball Rangers, and its clips come from one episode: seven straight road losses, a 3-15 record over the last 18 games at T-Mobile Park, then Ezekiel Duran's two-run single turning a 6-3 deficit into a 9-6 comeback against the A's. Shan and RJ is Dallas sports radio, two people who have talked to each other on air long enough to skip the smoothing; the Cowboys draft is the standing argument — Brian Broadus puts Sonny Styles "somewhere between 14, 15, 16" — beside a controversial Rangers statue, which they say reads differently if it represents Jay Banks rather than the Texas Rangers. 23 Personnel is the Texas Tech counterpart, Spencer and Michael talking fast and comfortably through a player's minutes and shooting splits and Texas Tech's women closing out Kansas State on a 21-0 run.

Lawmen, scripted and real

The Tales of the Texas Rangers dramas appear under more than one title — Tales Of The Texas Rangers - Moonlight Radio, Tales of The Texas Rangers Daily, and Tales of the Texas Rangers Presented by the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio, which puts a host's commentary in front of each case. All follow Ranger Jace Pearson and all sound like a case file read aloud: short declarative lines, ballistics and powder burns, a pencil in the muzzle of a .38 so as not to smudge prints. The clips are the working details — a torn ledger page jammed in a gun barrel, a watch strap and a scarred forefinger, a razor blade hidden in a picture frame, an old man walking into town covered in blood to say "I killed Mr. Redford. I shot him dead."

The real cases are slower. Gone Cold - Texas True Crime works unsolved Texas cases in multi-part runs: DNA from under Ashley Estell's fingernails and on her shoes and shirt that matched neither Michael Blair nor the soccer referee, and ended with Blair's guilty verdict overturned; the FBI treating Kim Nguyen's disappearance as a presumed abduction while Rudy Nguyen says "I lost my hope." All Crime No Cattle takes the sprawling ones: a River Oaks contract killing in Houston where Ann Kurth blurted out in court that John Hill had told her he killed Joan with a needle, and a Kaufman County storage unit holding a white Crown Vic, police gear and napalm.

The Capitol, the county seat, the border

Y'all-itics, from WFAA, is the statewide politics show, and its clips are Inside Texas Politics interview roundups: Republican Party of Texas chairman Abraham George on the White House's role in keeping incumbent lawmakers from being kicked off the ballot by their own party, Wesley Hunt on his U.S. Senate run and why he is attacking Cornyn rather than Paxton, the $10,000 school vouchers Texas parents can soon apply for and the private schools that will not take them. The Rabble | Texas Politics for the Unruly Mob is the activist version, dated 2020 and 2021: Stephanie Chiarello on testifying in a two-minute committee hearing and on how a bill dies on a point of order, Diana Gomez on the Democrats who left the Texas House to block SB7 after Republicans added 20 pages overnight. Texas Standard is the magazine, and in the feed it is John Moretti on a Central Texas cave bed "just littered" with Ice Age fossils and the Camp Mystic ruling that lets one campus reopen while a judge preserves flood-damaged structures as evidence.

Rio Grande Guardian's Podcast is the audio of a South Texas border newspaper, built from recorded meetings and interviews: Vicente Gonzalez saying builders are seeing a "30 to 40 percent drop" after ICE raids at construction sites, Mario Guerrero's line that agents go "where the fish are at", Rick Salinas announcing for mayor of Mission. About Mansfield is a civic bulletin with a studio table attached: school-board candidate interviews, superintendent Tiffanie Spencer on Mansfield ISD losing 600 students this year to virtual schools, micro schools and vouchers, and the Reverend Floyd S. Moody remembering the 1956 fight over Mansfield's school, when the principal said "They will never enter this school." Feed Bandit belongs here more than under its history filing: its Texas History Roundup titles are dated by the day, but the clips are the Texas-first argument — Texas as potentially the eighth largest country, a federal debt "almost $40 trillion", and "What am I getting for that?" put to federal taxes.

History, business, trail, home

Texas History Lessons is the slow walk: Dot Babb's Comanche memories, including Mrs. Luster's escape from a Kiowa camp on a stormy night, alongside the 1836 set pieces — Travis's letter listing the Alamo's guns and shells and promising "victory or death", and the 59 delegates who signed the declaration at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Texas Business Minds files each interview under a city, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio or Austin, and its clips are decision stories, Sunitha Vegerla taking aircraft-seat supplier Recaro from about 450 to 550 employees among them. Hike, Explore, Repeat: Trailblazing Texas Podcast is the state on foot: Henning on 15-to-20-foot drops and fading daylight on the Frijole Ridge Traverse and the point where the group decided to bail, Leah calling Guadalupe Mountains volunteers "the blood that pumps through the park service veins". Moms in the Hub, a Lubbock parenting show, is the page's one show about home life, with Haley Bufkin on postpartum depression and her advice to keep asking for help until someone listens.

Where to start

• For the Longhorns: Locked On Longhorns for the daily verdict, On Texas Football for recruiting and depth charts.
• For state politics: Y'all-itics; for how a bill actually dies, The Rabble.
• For the old radio Rangers: Tales of the Texas Rangers Presented by the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio, which talks through each case before playing it; for the real ones, Gone Cold - Texas True Crime.
• For one town rather than the whole state: Shan and RJ for Dallas, About Mansfield, Rio Grande Guardian's Podcast for the border.

The Texas feed on this page plays clips from these shows.