00:00Boy, I can't wait for the 2026 college football season.
00:04Big conversation has gone on this offseason here.
00:07Who are the best conferences in the country,
00:10the Southeastern Conference or the Big Ten?
00:12The conferences have been going back and forth
00:14for the last five years on supremacy in college sports.
00:18And everyone else, it's them and everyone else.
00:22Right now, currently, I do believe that the Big Ten
00:26is making that charge on being the best college football conference
00:30in America, just for the simple fact.
00:32The coaching that they're getting in that conference
00:35and also the commitment that they're getting
00:38at making each and every single program a better program.
00:42Look, in the Southeastern Conference, what do you have?
00:45You have the haves and the have-nots.
00:47You've got the Georgias and the Alabamas and the LSUs.
00:50And now you've got Texas and Oklahoma.
00:53But when you're in the Big Ten,
00:54you're talking about making each and every single member
00:58in that conference stronger.
01:01Southern Cal is starting to pick up again.
01:04UCLA is starting to pick up again.
01:06And most importantly, you have a football program in Indiana
01:11that is now the reigning national champion.
01:14Nobody on the planet would ever have thought
01:17that Indiana was going to go on and win a national championship.
01:21But that is a testament to what the Big Ten is doing.
01:24That's a testament that they're making each and every single program
01:28in that conference a stronger entity.
01:32And that's how you make your conference stronger.
01:35Look, the Big Ten has got a great relationship with Fox.
01:38And the Big Ten is doing everything to make each and every single program
01:43like Penn State, like Iowa, and all of the rest of these programs
01:46formidable opponents for going on and trying to win
01:50a national championship.
01:51There is no doubt that their leadership, in my opinion,
01:56has been better the last couple years
01:58than what we've seen in the Southeastern Conference.
02:01The problem that you have with Greg Sankey,
02:03the commissioner of the SEC, is this.
02:06He is looking at a nine-game schedule.
02:09He's looking at his own entity.
02:11And he's not looking at expanding
02:14and making that conference bigger and better.
02:17Look, it's great to get Texas and Oklahoma into that conference.
02:21It's important to get them into that conference
02:25because they're major brands.
02:27But what they're doing is now they're being more inclusive
02:30instead of going out and spreading it around
02:33and playing the other college football programs.
02:36Look, I'd say in the next three or four years,
02:39we're looking at college sports saying Big Ten, SEC,
02:42and then there's really everyone else.
02:44And that includes the Southeastern Conference.
02:47And with everyone else, and I mean the ACC,
02:51make no mistake about it, the ACC is the third wheel
02:54in its whole conversation along with the Big 12.
02:57Look, there is no doubt those two conferences run college football.
03:00And this year is going to be one of the greatest years
03:03in all of college sports, in my opinion.
03:07College football has been an absolute wonderful thing to watch
03:11for the generations that we've seen it.
03:13We've seen it grow into being the second biggest sport
03:16in all of America for a reason.
03:18It's because of the passion and the pageantry
03:21that you have with college sports.
03:23Make no mistake, college sports each and every single Saturday,
03:27it is electric.
03:28The stadiums around the country, there's nothing like it.
03:32The regular season of college football
03:34is one of the absolute great, and in my opinion,
03:37at times, even rivals the National Football League
03:40when it comes to the passion of the fans,
03:42no matter where you are, whether you're in Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
03:45or whether you're in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
03:48You've got great passion, and college football
03:51has become a dominant, dominant soul
03:54when it comes to sports in this country.
03:56And it's continuing.
03:58And it's continuing to grow.
04:00Look at the business aspects of what we see
04:03with college football, with the players now
04:05making enormous money.
04:06You see these guys now getting
04:08$4 to $5 to $6 million a year
04:11and how they're able to make that kind of money
04:14because of the money that's being generated
04:16with America's second best sport,
04:18and that is college football.
04:20I never thought years ago
04:22when I was playing at the University of Miami
04:24ever would I have ever thought
04:26that we would be seeing something like this
04:28where players were making millions of dollars,
04:31getting paid for their image,
04:33getting paid for all the things
04:35that they're doing in college
04:36and prepping them
04:37and getting them ready to play
04:39into the National Football League.
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