00:00I do want to touch on this because, Bill, we talked a little bit about this with some of the conferences and, you know, how well they finished in recruiting.
00:07We talked about some of the stars that Ohio, the five stars that Ohio State landed.
00:10Let's look at the whole conference and see how ultimately healthy the conference is in the Big Ten.
00:16Maybe the SEC is bouncing back a little bit, but my guy Jay Book threw this up.
00:21Latest five-star rankings broken down per conference.
00:24And for a long time still, especially when you were there, you know, Big Ten would be second, probably, possibly third.
00:31But you have the Big Ten with 13, SEC with 11, Notre Dame with themselves with five, which is what Ohio State has, Big 12 with two, ACC with one.
00:40Are you surprised now?
00:42Like, we've talked about this three years in a row the Big Ten's won the national championship.
00:45And not that recruiting is a perfect indicator, and I don't necessarily put, like, all the credit in the world and the stars,
00:50but there is a story to be told with them that now the Big Ten has kind of overtaken the SEC in that regard.
00:58That's just the world we're in now.
01:00I mean, the SEC can't just pay players and, like, expect that no one else is going to be able to now because it's legal.
01:07So now the Big Ten, I mean, you got Mark Cuban over there in Indiana.
01:10He can throw a couple bucks at somebody.
01:12They're going to want to go over to Indiana.
01:14So now the playing field is now even.
01:16And everyone's able to pay their players, and I really think that's why you're seeing this.
01:21You're seeing more people go up north, even though it's cold.
01:24There's still some guys down south.
01:26Of course, everyone loves Notre Dame.
01:28Then the Big 12, ACC's got a couple, but it's just the fact that now it's legal to pay your players.
01:33Because, I mean, the SEC, they were getting away with it for decades.
01:36And now, I mean, everyone can do it.
01:38Yeah, and it's a big difference for that to happen because, like you said, nobody can do it.
01:43And now all of a sudden you're starting to see maybe some cracks in the armor, and, like, the recruiting is kind of the canary in the coal mine.
01:49Like, you start to see that shift.
01:51And also the portal is a big part of it now because guys bring players in in the portal as much as you do, if maybe not more important than just purely high school recruiting.
01:59But still, like, that's kind of indicating, like, how much talent you're getting on the team.
02:03So, one year, maybe not a huge deal, but you start seeing this stack, and then two, three, four years down the line, you ultimately start to see, well, these teams, they're playing a little better because maybe they've got the better players.
02:13It starts to make a little more sense or a little short on time.
02:16But I want to get to this with you because I love that hat, by the way.
02:20We'll talk about that in a minute, too.
02:22Because you were a guy that's from Atlanta, you know, 45, 50 minutes from Georgia.
02:26I'm from Georgia, not Atlanta.
02:29From Georgia, I'm sorry.
02:30You're from Georgia.
02:30Being from Atlanta and Georgia.
02:32How far are you from UGA's campus?
02:35Hour 15.
02:37Okay.
02:37So, not far at all.
02:39I mean, I grew up about 45 minutes from Ohio State's campus.
02:42I mean, that's a commute for a lot of people in the city of Atlanta, if you will.
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