Chris Huston (00:01.567)
Devon Dampier and the Utah Utes are fresh off a 43–10 victory over UCLA at the Rose Bowl this past Saturday. Devon, welcome to the Heisman Trophy Podcast.

Devon Dampier (00:12.398)
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Chris Huston (00:15.519)
Yeah, no problem. Part of the job of an interviewer, any good interviewer worth his salt, is you have to go stalk people on social media. I was looking at your social media accounts and I see Spider-Man everywhere. What is it about that character that resonates with you so much?

Devon Dampier (00:29.518)
I just think it was mainly kind of the Spidey Sense thing. That was the biggest part on the field, that tends to activate. He’s always been my favorite hero growing up and I’ve applied it in the football universe.

Chris Huston (00:49.759)
Does your Spidey Sense ever tingle when there's a defender closing in on your blind side?

Devon Dampier (00:53.966)
That's what I call it because it's definitely instinct.

Chris Huston (00:58.313)
Do you see any similarities between being Spider-Man and being a quarterback?

Devon Dampier (01:03.438)
Yeah, I think there's a little bit of both. You both try to make others better around you, try to help the situation.

Chris Huston (01:12.707)
Do you get into character when you're playing? I knew a guy years ago who was a running back and he said he used to take on the character of Tony Montana from Scarface when he was running. Do you become Spider-Man when you get on the field?

Devon Dampier (01:24.922)
For real.

Devon Dampier (01:30.51)
Mentally, I tell myself I can put the mask on, nothing more than that.

Chris Huston (01:35.987)
I noticed that you set a goal for 6,000 yards of total offense. That is a lot. Last year at New Mexico, you guys had around 5,800 yards. Coach Whittingham has historically been pretty defensive minded. When he talked to you about transferring, what did he tell you about the kind of offense he wanted to run? And is he going to let you and Coach Beck have free rein to go wild?

Devon Dampier (02:02.51)
That was definitely the main reason why I came here. He first talked about culture and how important that is to him, especially during this age of football. Then, on the offensive side, he believed in my talents on the field and he believes in Coach Beck as well. He let us know that if we came here, it was going to be up to us. He gave us that power.

Chris Huston (02:29.885)
When you got there, what were some of the little things you noticed that were different from New Mexico, going over to Utah? Were there traditions or ways of doing things that really stuck out to you?

Devon Dampier (02:45.868)
Practices were a lot more deliberate. Also the mentality. The mentality at New Mexico was great, but Utah is known for having that tough mindset every time we're on the field. Every practice almost felt like a game to me.

Chris Huston (03:10.579)
Did you already have that tough mindset or did you have to develop it further at Utah?

Devon Dampier (03:15.406)
I feel like I've always had it, especially from high school. I always felt like I was doubted growing up. That chip on my shoulder never leaves.

Chris Huston (03:24.029)
You won a state title at Saguaro High in Scottsdale. Watching tape of you in high school, you look just like Kyler Murray to me. Clearly other people weren’t as into that. What happened with your high school recruiting that you didn't get much attention from the Power Five schools?

Devon Dampier (03:43.702)
I was blessed to be in a situation with a lot of players that went D1. I definitely got the chance to throw in front of them. But the height was always the emphasis people talked about with me. New Mexico took a shot on me and I accepted that opportunity. I’m grateful for it.

Chris Huston (04:09.97)
It seems weird that height is still a thing, especially when Kyler Murray was the first pick in the draft and he's short. One area people say you need to improve is completion percentage. You had a big game against UCLA, 21 of 25, 84%. That’s your best completion percentage. What did Coach Beck say to you about that, and how would you grade your performance against the Bruins?

Devon Dampier (04:35.948)
Coach Beck came up to me right after and told me I played very well. He was happy with the leadership and the performance. He has a lot of trust in me this year. I could feel it. He trusted me last year, but with a year under your belt, you can feel when a coach trusts you more. He made that certain. I thought my performance was good.

Chris Huston (05:05.163)
It always helps when the O-line, receivers, and running backs contribute. It makes your job easier. Was that one of the factors when you were looking at schools? Did you look at Utah’s O-line and think, wow, five starters returning, that’s a good situation?

Devon Dampier (05:22.454)
Yeah, that was probably number one. Seeing five starters back, I wanted to be behind those guys.

Chris Huston (05:30.346)
What kind of work did you do in the offseason to improve your accuracy?

Devon Dampier (05:35.726)
Timing and visualizing coverages with the receivers. Talking with them when we were working out alone, staying on the same page, same communication. Being in rhythm so the ball gets in their hands on time.

Chris Huston (05:54.025)
For a quarterback, the biggest jump often comes from the second year to the third year in a system. How much of your improvement will be natural progression versus specific work?

Devon Dampier (06:13.27)
I think it’s very natural for me. From the first day here, going against a great defense every day, I felt progress. With a second year in this offense, I went into game week with confidence and that’s going to continue to grow.

Chris Huston (06:36.574)
There’s so much transferring in college football. What’s it like going to a new school? Is it like the first day of school, meeting new people and having all eyes on you?

Devon Dampier (07:06.316)
It's about getting out of your shell. I was lucky to come here with two teammates from New Mexico, so I bonded with them right away. But opening up to new people helped our team come close together.

Chris Huston (07:25.98)
What part of your game do you obsess about most in the film room and why?

Devon Dampier (07:31.406)
Definitely not taking sacks. That’s my number one. I love helping my offensive line. They make a lot of calls during the game, and if they mess up once, I let them know I’ve got their back. We’re going to keep the no-sacks streak going.

Chris Huston (07:49.541)
You’re an incredible escape artist in the pocket. Do you have the mentality that if nothing’s there, you can always take off and run? Does that make life easier mentally?

Devon Dampier (08:02.734)
That’s a talent I was blessed with. If the throw’s not there, sometimes the defense plays good coverage. To turn a bad play into a positive play is something I like to do.

Chris Huston (08:23.376)
Utah fans are getting pretty excited. They haven’t had a lot of dynamism at quarterback consistently over the years. How do you handle the weight of expectations—not just from coaches but fans, and the ones you put on yourself?

Devon Dampier (08:44.322)
I'm glad to be in this situation. When I first got here, I heard about how highly everyone talked about Cam Rising. To follow him means a lot. I try to keep opinions within the team. That keeps my mindset where it needs to be. I stay away from outside noise as much as possible.

Chris Huston (09:10.63)
Besides Spider-Man and superheroes, what do you like to do when you're away from football?

Devon Dampier (09:16.782)
Food. I love eating with my teammates. It’s rare that I eat alone.

Chris Huston (09:29.992)
You’re definitely a Mountain/Southwest guy—Arizona, New Mexico, Utah. Which state has the best food?

Devon Dampier (09:41.678)
Arizona. They’ve got everything—burgers, Mexican food, chicken and waffles.

Chris Huston (09:52.491)
If football was suddenly gone tomorrow, what path would you take?

Devon Dampier (10:00.175)
Good question. I’ve wanted to coach, though I need to test my patience level. But whatever life steers me toward, I’m a hard worker and I’ll challenge myself to be the best in it.

Chris Huston (10:23.346)
What about your major? I think I saw electrical engineering.

Devon Dampier (10:29.15)
That’s what I started in. I switched to economics. Engineering was harsh my first year.

Chris Huston (10:36.552)
Are you naturally interested in how things work?

Devon Dampier (10:44.288)
Yeah, I’m big on math and the nerdy things.

Chris Huston (10:52.304)
Do you play puzzle or word games online?

Devon Dampier (11:01.836)
Yeah, IQ tests and things like that. I used to take them all the time and get my friends to take them too.

Chris Huston (11:13.246)
What about fixing and building things? Can you fix your bike or car?

Devon Dampier (11:20.716)
I’m trying to get more into that—being “Mr. Fix-It.”

Chris Huston (11:27.944)
Is there something fans would be surprised to learn about you? I saw you riding a horse on social media.

Devon Dampier (11:38.734)
Coach Swan is the real cowboy coach here. I told him when I get my house, he can cowboy me up. He said he’s got me. That’s coming soon.

Chris Huston (11:53.675)
Utah’s never had a Heisman winner. It has had one finalist, Alex Smith, in 2004. What would it mean for you to make it to New York in December?

Devon Dampier (12:05.07)
It would mean a lot. Only one person wins the Heisman, but for me to get there would mean a lot as a team. Utah football is different—more loving, everything matters. The way the guys rally around me, representing our team would be huge.

Chris Huston (12:31.53)
The last 14 quarterbacks to win the Heisman averaged 4,300 total yards and 48 touchdowns. Last year you had 3,934 yards and 31 touchdowns. You’re within striking distance. In your second year in the system, what should we look for, and can you reach that Heisman level?

Devon Dampier (13:01.548)
I think we’ll be more efficient. Last game was our first and I’m happy with how we came out. As we get more comfortable, plays will come more naturally. Progress will come with that.

Chris Huston (13:26.014)
You just played UCLA in the Rose Bowl. Great debut for the Utes. Now you’re coming back to play at Rice-Eccles against Cal Poly on Saturday. How excited are you to play in front of the fans?

Devon Dampier (13:39.126)
I’m super excited. I’ve met some fans before the season, and the MUSS is the real thing. I’m excited to see the student section and the fan base.

Chris Huston (13:55.54)
Well, Devon Dampier of Utah, what an exciting player. Fun to watch. Amazing runner, amazing passer, a great all-around quarterback. Good luck against Cal Poly and maybe we’ll see you in New York in December.

Devon Dampier (14:10.286)
Thank you, I appreciate it.

Chris Huston (14:12.137)
Thank you.

Chris Huston (00:02.062)
We are here with ESPN's Bill Connolly, who has just wrote a book called Forward Progress, The Definitive Guide to the Future of College Football. Bill, welcome to the Heisman Trophy Podcast.

Bill Connelly (00:13.071)
appreciate you having me.

Chris Huston (00:15.65)
You know, in your mission statement, you describe college football as forever maddening, forever incredible. What made now the right time to step back and write this definitive guide to its future?

Bill Connelly (00:28.591)
Well, I mean, think just the amount that's going on in the present, you know, for 60 years, we've been arguing about any number of things, know, treatment, you paying players or, know, what kind of postseason we're going to have all these different things. And suddenly it's all changed within the last couple of years. And so really I kind of wrote this book in part, just to kind of get my own thoughts of my own legs underneath me again, because I like

Chris Huston (00:54.019)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (00:54.733)
I like having a vision of where things should go. And it felt like for the last couple of years, we're all just reacting to things as they come. And I wanted to step back a little bit and kind of attack each one of these separately, each one of this, the kind of the changes and issues separately. And, you know, the book came about from that.

Chris Huston (01:10.882)
Yeah, I've read some of it haven't been able to get all of it yet. But you did start in the first chapter with the 2006 Rose Bowl game between USA and Texas. You kind of mark that as the sort of the marker or it's kind of like the baseline, I think for how you for how you track the changes. why did you choose that game?

Bill Connelly (01:25.86)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (01:30.863)
Well, think, mean, number one, just knew that, you know, when I started this process in late 2023, I started to realize that the game was, if I wrote this book, it was probably going to come out in 2025, the 20th anniversary of this game. So it kind of made sense in that regard, no matter what, but then I started thinking about it and kind of, you know, walking through back through the game and taking my notes and everything. And I started to realize, I mean,

Chris Huston (01:40.716)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (01:53.199)
Obviously one of the greatest games of all time, but beyond that too, it was this perfect little window into two different eras. It was kind of the end of an older era where you had Keith Jackson on the call, you had fullbacks in the game, all these different things. But then you also, Vince Young and Roger Bush were kind of futuristic players to begin with. And you just had kind of, was HD television and big stages and...

We had moved on to the BCS and it kind of felt like the beginning of the transition toward this era as well. know, Reggie Bush, everything that played out in the Reggie Bush saga would have been much different 20 years later. But it was, it felt like the end of one era, beginning of another. And it was a great narrative device once I started going down that road.

Chris Huston (02:45.258)
Absolutely for sure though. I like the way you weaved the present and the past together in that chapter. Very interesting read. What is your personal background and why did you get really get into college football from the beginning?

Bill Connelly (02:59.151)
Um, well, I started as a blogger. know there's still, there are a few of us out there who found the blogs in the mid 2000. Yeah. Um, and

Chris Huston (03:04.212)
I was one. Yeah. By the way, if I, if I, if, if we cross paths and I, and I got too hard, I was too hard on you. apologize back then. There's a lot of arguing back then.

Bill Connelly (03:12.695)
I yeah, who knows? Who knows what people might have said in like 2006. It's been a while we've we've all grown. No, no, I you know, basically started in that period. And I started a Mizzou blog, actually, you know, I still live in Columbia, I still live in my college town somehow. And, you know, just kind of started a Mizzou blog and didn't know what I was going to write about over the summer months and started playing with analytics and whatnot. There there really weren't any or much to

Chris Huston (03:17.11)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bill Connelly (03:39.663)
there wasn't much to go on in college football. And so I started fiddling around and that gave me kind of an end. was always the, the writing always came first. Um, but you know, playing with the numbers, get into it, you know, over the next few years, building what I thought was a pretty good predictive model and SP plus it kind of gave me, you know, a way to understand the game. Then I start to, you know, I started full time with SB nation in 2011 and got to

Chris Huston (03:41.879)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (03:55.886)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Connelly (04:06.199)
you know, start to know the coaching side of things. And I started to, it was just really fun trying to understand how the game works from a lot of different directions. And just that and lots and lots of writing through the years, I developed a specific kind of perspective on things and it's, it's, it's led to a few books and a decent career.

Chris Huston (04:26.913)
You know, college football, you go, you talk about the period back then. A lot of it was about arguing. lot of it was about debating. lot of it was about passion, engagement, fan engagement. A lot of these issues you bring up in the book were things that we've been debating for years, talking about ways to improve things. I remember I was just like big on schedule reform. Everyone should play the same amount of games, have similar, you know, types of opponents as far as strength of schedule and all that. And then, you know, things kind of petered around for a couple decades. And then suddenly last few years was just everything everywhere all at once. And I worry that, that it's, it's kind of almost like a reflection of other parts of society where there's massive changes going on where we're obviously not going back to the before time of college football. And so the traditionalists sort of have to kind of eat that, right? They have to kind of accept that. They don't want to be the old man yelling at the cloud. At the same time, you know, I worry, my big worry is that it gets taken over by a bunch of corporate stooges, right? You've got, there's talk of private equity coming in and buying up teams and running them. And the first thing they're going to do is get rid of some of the things that maybe a little bit seem extraneous to someone who's not, whose dedication isn't to college football, but the shareholders and, maybe some of those things that make college football special. And, know, the, the music starts to get piped in and things start to get glossier and almost like AI slop, sort of a homogenization of everything, sort of like the NFL. How do we go through this change while still retaining the things that

For a lot of us old timers, made college football so appealing and so intriguing.

Bill Connelly (06:25.261)
Yeah, this is certainly where, you know, I've written basically a soccer piece a week for the last five years that gave me a lot of useful insights to things like private equity and how things go in that regard, because it's been, I think, pretty clearly a net negative for European soccer, especially. Because yeah, you come in, once private equity, or it would be a little different with college sports, you can't like buy a college football team, obviously. But you invest in an athletic department, you're going to have pretty strong opinions on how to cut costs.

Chris Huston (06:41.55)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Connelly (06:54.619)
and streamline things and whatnot. that takes us in pretty obvious directions. And it's not really something we keep.

you know, flirting with the vampire and thinking about inviting them into the house, but we haven't quite done it yet, at least, at least not in terms of schools or conferences, it feels like any day now. But no, I mean, there's there are all these kind of influences when when when the pursuit of more money takes over everything else. And there's nobody in charge of the sport to stop anybody from doing that. It takes us to pretty clear places. I did, you know, one of the chapters was

in regard to, you know, why there isn't a commissioner who's actually in charge of college football. And it really, you know, we've seen plenty of sports do plenty of terrible things with a commissioner in charge. It's not like that's a cure all by any means, but not having one means that the most powerful commissioners are in charge. They, that's the way it's been for at least 30 years now. And they are beholden to their presidents and make the most money for their conference and creating the most power for their conference. And that's just a really bad thing because

Chris Huston (07:41.964)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (07:58.959)
you know, among other things, it means everybody else has to take risks to keep up. And that's where the private equity and things like that get involved. we're kind of lucky with college football, just in that it's always going to be silly. You know, there's always there's never, you know, 18 to 22 year old males playing with a pointy ball. Like that stuff's always going to that's never going to go completely as planned. And the influence that boosters have is very unique as well. So we got plenty of that going for us, I guess. But at the same time,

Chris Huston (08:03.756)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Bill Connelly (08:28.367)
Yeah, the, the, the pursuit of power and money has taken us to predictable places. And I am kind of worried about not only that, that kind of homogenization in some ways at the top of the sport, but also just the top of the sport out distancing the rest of the sport. Can we even have a Boise state rise now? You know, can we have a 2007? It feels less likely than it did at one point.

Chris Huston (08:45.89)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Huston (08:51.307)
For sure. You you talk a lot about bringing in a commissioner or creating an office of commissioner and you weigh the, the pluses and minuses of this. Like you mentioned, you could get a bad commissioner, the old system. was this, kind of thrived on decentralization, right? Where it's like college football. I told this to Austin Murphy a long time ago. It's like this never ending constitutional convention where all these factions are debating over the way things should be. And no one ever really gets the upper hand.

And so you have this stasis that where everyone is, everyone's a little bit dissatisfied, but you got the weird stuff to sort of pull you through. And how do you balance that against this commissioner? I just think that college football fans are so distrustful. Like, USC fans, know, Paul D was the head of the contract and fractions committee and he was a Miami guy. You should have seen the USC fans talking about, you know, Miami just wants to beat USC and

Bill Connelly (09:37.025)
you

Chris Huston (09:47.894)
You know, and God forbid someone goes to a school who's, you know, at the top of a, food chain who is a rival for your, for your, from your team, for your team. So it's like, you're not going to trust that. Who is someone out there? I mean, I know you've offered yourself since 2017 and Hey, and, you know, I'm. I could be, I could be all for that potentially, you know, but who is someone out there that is basically seen as nonpartisan.

Bill Connelly (10:02.447)
Yep. Any day that call could come. Any day that call could come.

Bill Connelly (10:16.813)
Yeah. No, I mean, that's, that's always going to be the issue. Cause I mean, even obviously, you know, you asked Nick Saban, everybody says Nick Saban should be it. And he's like, I don't want to do it. What about Greg Senke? Well, Greg Senke is already the most powerful person in the sec and probably college sports. But if Senke were in that title instead, he really is. I didn't try to stay right up front in the book and cause I, you know, I get kind of frustrated with conference commissioners sometimes. And so there's plenty of that in the book, but I tried to say right up front, like they're.

Chris Huston (10:17.121)
that could do this job.

Bill Connelly (10:44.333)
working on presidents, their president's behalf. If they don't do a good enough job of that, somebody else can.

you they can be fired and somebody else can take the job. So I get it. And maybe if he had a different hat on and had to think for the best of all of college football, he would make a lot of different decisions. So maybe that's fine, but you're right. He would always still have been the sec commissioner and he will, anybody you put in that job will have graduated from some school that has college football and, uh, the way fans are. mean, I guess really it wouldn't be any different. The only difference would be you'd be distrustful of a person instead of like the,

you know, the, the NCAA just being this kind of mass thing that everybody who decided was conspiring against them. Maybe that wouldn't be that big a change, but you're right. Like people will find a way to, to, you know, theorize about whatever conspiracies are holding their team back.

Chris Huston (11:26.465)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (11:36.94)
I have to admit I kind of miss the old days of the evil NCAA, all powerful, completely irrational with, you know, a labyrinth of regulations and things that people couldn't understand. It was a charm to it. You know, there's, here's a question I've been asking a lot of people on the show, a lot of journalists on the show when they come on. And I'm trying to figure this out because anecdotally I walk around, I talk to people who are in college football and here's my anecdote.

Bill Connelly (11:40.377)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (12:06.689)
The people who've been following it for a long time are like, man, I don't, I don't even really, I don't know. I don't even know who's on the team anymore. It doesn't make any sense to me. Why am I interested to see Cal play NC state? That kind of thing. see a lot of that. There's a lot of people who are turned off by that. That's just anecdotally. But then there's this other anecdote where I know this guy who not, you know, as far, as long as I've known him, he's not into college football very much, but now he suddenly knows a lot about teens.

Bill Connelly (12:14.223)
Right.

Bill Connelly (12:19.705)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (12:35.725)
And that's cause of betting and betting is such a big part of, you know, betting is legal in so many States now. And it's, can go online with your phone and do all these prop bets. And it's my theory. It's completely right now. I'm just a completely, uh, unvalidated theory, but I'm, curious for your opinion, but how much of the, uh, increase in popularity in the sport, which has been marked in the last few years and is, and, and, you know, and is accounted to the

the playoff, how much of it is sort of like this attention being paid because of the bets the same way that like the N I if you took away fantasy football from the NFL, what would their true ratings be like?

Bill Connelly (13:18.959)
Well, I guess, I mean, we don't really have to worry about gambling being, know, re, you know, prohibition coming forward at this point. It's infiltrated too much. I mean, you're right. That's why Hawaii, those late Hawaii games are so popular in a lot of cases is because that's the only game in that window. So I'm watching it and I'm betting on it, you know, and that is certainly part of it. It is hard because, you know,

Chris Huston (13:39.084)
Right.

Bill Connelly (13:44.301)
One of the chapters I wrote early in the book is called How Sports Fall From Grace. Because while we always, any change from college football that we don't like, we'll say it's killing college football, but any measure we have for how the sport's doing sure seems healthy. We basically only have TV ratings and attendance levels, and attendance isn't as good as it maybe was 50 years ago or whatever, but it's good. It's up from a few years ago. Ratings are fine, but you're right, we can't really separate.

you know, is that because the sport's doing the right things or because, you know, gambling is a thing and there are a whole heck of a lot of college football games to gamble on at any one time. So it is tricky, but it does kind of reinforce one of the parts of that chapter where I just, you know, one of the biggest lessons here is you just aren't in control as much as you want to be. You can think it's, know, this playoffs great ratings are great. Everything's doing great, but you're one financial crisis away. Like NASCAR really found out.

hard way that when the sponsorship checks kind of dissipated significantly with the financial crisis in the late 2000s, suddenly they found out just how much they had alienated a lot of their hardcore audience by pursuing the casuals and, you know, really just trying to take care of the hard cores and being really super paranoid about things like that can protect you if, you know, something changes and suddenly we decide this gambling thing is terrible, we need to make it illegal again and then suddenly a good percentage of your viewership disappears.

Chris Huston (15:12.407)
Yeah, but the sport survives. anyway, yeah. Obviously, I worked for the Heisman Trophy. We do the Heisman Trophy podcast. The Heisman Trophy is one of the great traditions of college football. It goes back a long way. There is lots of chaos with the playoff right now. The Heisman is always the second Saturday in December. And of late, the ability to get players...

Bill Connelly (15:32.928)
Mm.

Chris Huston (15:39.468)
to New York to take part in the ceremony is becoming a bit more difficult, and especially gonna be more difficult as it expands, because we don't really know when the schedule's gonna be. How much do you think, I don't think that they're taking any of that into account when they're doing this stuff, and this is kind of what I worry about, just a bunch of the things. We've already seen it with the rivalries, we've seen it with the conferences and the regional alliances and regional affiliations that people have.

What is the next thing to go and do you think as far as like what we're used to or or is there anything that's going to go and are there any traditions like the Heisman that could potentially be overwhelmed by all this this playoff talk?

Bill Connelly (16:23.649)
I think, I mean, the playoff certainly restructures a lot and whatever becomes like what I've learned from the bowls, the way the importance of the bowls has shifted over time is that, you know, that could shift. Maybe you have no choice but to have, or the Heisman in like late January or something. I have no idea. however that comes about, maybe it gets moved one way or the other. But it can still, like if we want it to be part of the equation, it's still part of the equation. Bowls obviously carried

Early on, they were hugely beneficial for college football because you had the limited TV contract with the NCAA. was your chance to show off all your stars that people only read about during the season because they'd only been on TV once or whatever. It was a great vessel in that regard. And then once we got more and more games on television, Bulls just started clinging to whatever importance they could have. that basically meant doing whatever they could to lobby to shut down any playoff talk for like 30 years.

There was a quote in there from the Sugar Bowl president in like the late seventies when they were talking about a plus one playoff word. I don't know why you would want to destroy us. Like, come on. it was, it was, that wasn't going to be a thing. But what we've learned is, you know, the playoff has, has absolutely, you know, decreased the importance of the bowls. Bowls are still a lot of fun. Even if it means kind of more like it's the first game of next season instead of the last game of this season, you know, people still watch. It can still be a fun trip. You can still get something out of it.

It is still a thing that we enjoy a lot of the time. And I'm always paranoid about getting like limiting the bowl number because it's like the least important bowls that are the most fun. And we'd get rid of those first and that would stink. you know, regardless, bowls have changed, but they're still a thing. I don't see a world where the Heisman ever isn't important. Even if you have to move it here or there, it's still because it is just still a landmark of the season. And therefore we continue to value it. just.

Chris Huston (18:02.475)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (18:18.637)
Yeah, that weekend might get swallowed up and I might have to, you know, move to a different part of the calendar or something.

Chris Huston (18:24.493)
Yeah, that's, they're not going to like that. Um, the, uh, Oh shoot. Last for train of thought. Give me a second here. Um, Oh yeah. So one thing that struck me about your book is you're writing this book and such as the, drawback of the medium is that, sometimes you can be overtaken by events. And one thing that happened recently is the sec going to a nine game schedule. And there was some discussion in that, in that move that sort of

Bill Connelly (18:26.784)
You

Chris Huston (18:54.315)
gave me some pause and it was like sort of setting up this narrative where, gosh, playing nine games in that conference is basically now and forever, like harder than anything. So we're going to start seeing three or four loss teams go to the playoffs. Like they're basically setting up this thing where it's like, Hey, we should be able to have three or four loss teams. And for me, it's like, if we have a three or four loss national champion, I'm like, what are we doing here?

even. Is that the sport that we love?

Bill Connelly (19:29.903)
For some reason, three and four, there's a humongous separation in my head. Four, I can't comprehend. Three, I'm like, yeah, I can see three. That'd be fine. But no, I mean, think that is...

Chris Huston (19:37.207)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (19:41.903)
The one thing that the 12 team playoff officially ushered in was the fact that we have an actual tournament at the end of the year now. And that doesn't have to be scary. Like that's every other level of football. You know, a six and four high school team could get on a roll and win state, you know, stuff like that. And that's always a state title, whether they were, you know, they weren't amazing in the regular season. So I'm not, I'm not worried about that, but it was a massive change. was one of many, many massive changes we've seen recently. And, you know,

If there's a, I I'm curious what the reaction to such a thing would be, because if you're, if you win a playoff, you played awesome at the end of the year. Like you, like that's the one thing we've already learned is Ohio state had to really, really shift into a high gear to do what they did last year. And you're to end up beating two or three, at least like top five level teams. So yeah, if you do that, maybe, you know, we, we just kind of, go with it. We're used to it from every other sport. And it turns out to not be a thing that we.

It turns out to be a thing we thought we'd care about and then it happens and we're like, they were awesome. It's great. You know, no complaints. I don't know. Like that is, but there are just so many of those hypotheticals that we're just inching closer and closer to. And you mentioned, go ahead. No.

Chris Huston (20:45.654)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (20:52.223)
Yeah, I remember, I'm sorry, go ahead. I remember listening to Marcus Allen talk in the early eighties about before the season and they'd ask him, what's your, what's your goal for the team? What's the team's goals this year? He said, our goal is the same as it is every year to go 12 and four and win the division to lose four games. And it's like, where is the, you should want to win every game. And I fear that they're sort of like right now there's a little bit of the decompetitiveness in the.

Bill Connelly (21:08.419)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Huston (21:22.067)
in the, maybe the message that coaches need to send to players now, like before every game, every game was really like live or die, right? You had to win the game for the most part. Maybe you could lose one prior to last year. There was only one other two loss national champion in history. And that was a huge fluke, huge anomaly. And then suddenly the first year of the 12 team playoff, bam, a two loss team. Right. So it's like right away and

Bill Connelly (21:33.923)
Right.

Bill Connelly (21:40.228)
Right.

Bill Connelly (21:46.308)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (21:50.816)
I don't know. just, I fear that like, you're going to start seeing like a lot of things you see in the NFL where it's where players are saved for the playoff. You drop that late game. It doesn't matter. They're still making the playoff and none of these things are really how it was. and okay, that's fine. But it is moving toward, like an NFL light, something that is sustainable for the fan base or is just, is it just going to be a completely new

electorate, so to speak.

Bill Connelly (22:22.191)
I guess I'm not as concerned about that as others simply because I do think a lot of what we talk about with college football, what makes it unique is like fan ownership of the sport is never going to be like the NFL. It's always going to be different and just the atmospheres are always different. so many of the product itself is different.

Chris Huston (22:34.945)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Connelly (22:41.653)
obviously, you know, having future pro to, you know, even this like having future pro talent and ridiculous looking physically ridiculous looking teams when the national title we're used to that too. So yeah, I don't know, like, I think you just have to make sure that you are you

That DNA, it's changing, that's fine, but I think it was Ryan McGee in the Falling from Grace chapter talking about ripping your roots out of the ground. You gotta make sure that the roots are still there, whatever that means. We have to kind of decide what that means. For me, it is about, we've already lost a lot of those games that fans want their teams to be playing.

Chris Huston (23:07.873)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Huston (23:14.071)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (23:21.539)
That's a huge concern to me. Cause I mean, like I'm a Mizzou guy, I still live in Columbia. Like the Kansas game sold out very quickly this year. People are extremely excited about that. And that's good. Like that's even though you're in different conferences and everything, like play the games you're supposed to be playing, like that your fans expect. And that's a huge thing. Like

Mizzou, Kansas, Alabama, Auburn is never not going to be a big deal. Michigan, Ohio State last year, we saw exactly how it could be changed with the playoff. The Ohio State lost it. was a devastating for two weeks and then they went on and won the national title.

but it was still awesome and Michigan fans still sure love bragging about winning that game. it's, know, it doesn't, having, again, having this many things change is always, you know, ground's kind of wobbling and it's kind of a scary place to be. But as long as we didn't make a good list of what truly makes college football.

Chris Huston (24:00.535)
Good point, good point.

Bill Connelly (24:17.057)
and we stick to that list as much as possible. already strained from it a little. Then I'm less worried about that than maybe I should be. We'll see.

Chris Huston (24:25.354)
Yeah. and that's why we need someone like you to be the commissioner, right? in the book, in the book, you sketch utopian and dystopian futures for the game. What scenario do you think is most likely to play out over the next decade?

Bill Connelly (24:29.283)
Boom. Exactly.

Bill Connelly (24:39.245)
Well, I think for the short term, we do kind of know I one of the points in there in a lot of places in that book is we never know the future as well as we think we do. You know, that's we never got the four evenly powered super conferences, 16 teams each, like we thought we got like a mutated version of that where they're not all 16 and a couple are way more powerful than the others. So we never quite know what's coming. We know in the short term.

Chris Huston (24:56.875)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (25:05.059)
The SEC and Big Ten have leveraged every have used every single amount of leverage they have to make sure they get the most money from the playoff and that they have the decision making power moving forward. And I hate that with a passion. Like that's one of the biggest, you know, the depth of this sport is one of its biggest strengths. And now we're kind of trying to, you know, suffocate some of that. And so that's huge concern to me, but we do know in the short term, this is we don't know what the playoffs going to look like, but we know players are going to get paid and we know who's going to be paying the most for those players. So.

Chris Huston (25:16.459)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (25:35.043)
That is what it is. one of the goals, I guess, of the book was to at least kind of sketch out possibilities for the future. If there's ever a moment for change. Unfortunately, a lot of big changes, you need a crisis to undertake that change. And I'm not going to root for a crisis, but just as opportunities come, just directions we could go, whether it's

sharing revenue more broadly, whether it's a salary floor kind of deal where everybody has to spend a certain amount of money to make sure that there's a lot in the the pool for a bunch of players, know, whatever those things are, I just try to touch on a lot of different things to make sure we don't assume that the next two years, the next few years that are happening are forever. It doesn't always have to be that way.

Chris Huston (26:12.299)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (26:19.372)
Yeah. One of the things I've noticed that in the discourse in the media coverage, I'd say like 80 % of coverage of college football right now has to do with NIL, TV rights, conference, like basically a bunch of like everything but the game almost. And the recruiting sites, which for many of the diehards, those recruiting sites I feel are, they're just not what they were because recruiting isn't really recruiting anymore. It's like, it's just bidding or

Bill Connelly (26:30.861)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (26:45.167)
Right.

Chris Huston (26:49.62)
and it's super opaque, you don't know what's going on. There's no way to really, to really cover it properly. And, and so you don't get that drama. You don't get that early exposure as much to, to the fans. But on the other hand, you know, I was thinking about it and I said to my friend the other day with all these changes, you know, we're still have Alabama Auburn, but there's not going to be any Alabama fans who are like poisoning Auburn's trees anymore. And then I'm like, well, maybe that's

Bill Connelly (27:16.015)
Right.

Chris Huston (27:19.06)
Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we, maybe we can curb, maybe like curbing some of the nuttier excesses and bringing some levity and perspective to the sport, which after all involves real human beings and people who are doing their best and ostensibly student athletes. You know, I guess my question for you is if you were the commissioner right now, what are the first two or three things you would do? You know, right out the, right out the block.

Bill Connelly (27:19.375)
Maybe that's fine, yeah.

Bill Connelly (27:26.372)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (27:44.719)
Yeah. Well, I do think the, yeah, some of that toxic passion, we could stand to probably drop that a little bit. Even last year, like if one of the takeaways from Michigan, Ohio State is you don't have to give your head coach death threats after he wins a rivalry game or loses a rivalry game. Like maybe that's okay. But no, mean, one of the first things I, you know,

Chris Huston (27:52.364)
You

Chris Huston (28:00.525)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (28:07.087)
Basically, if you know, in my mind, if you're in a commissioner level thing, like you want to make sure that everyone is engaged for as long as possible. You don't want anybody to disengage to let go of the rope to use a football coach parlance. And so you, you know, I'd be just on the lookout for whatever those things I feel are most important. One of them is again, making sure teams are playing who they're supposed to be playing, make sure that those games are on the schedule as much as possible. I

You know, once I'm put, once I'm put in charge of all college football scheduling, have some pretty good ideas for how to, you know, do that any day now again. But, another thing is, you know, we really do need to get to a point with the NIL situation where you do have some sort of whatever it's called, whether we call it collective bargaining agreements or whatever. It is a very strange situation to be in where, you know, all these coaches are hiring like

Chris Huston (28:40.021)
you

Bill Connelly (28:59.757)
general managers or cap, you know, guys to balance the cap, all these, you know, everybody's looking at it slightly differently, but how do you do that? How do you plan at all when your best players can, it can go demand more money or transfer in January and then do it all over again in April. There's a reason why every coach wants one window. and I get it. I don't see how that works with the academic year at all. So there's, we'll see exactly what kind of progress is made, but

Chris Huston (29:03.073)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (29:18.38)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Connelly (29:25.367)
No, you know, that's get into that point where, know, in advance, I'm going to this school for at least two years. if I, if I want to leave, you know, you're free to leave, you're not a hostage, but you, you there are, is, know, whether it's losing a year of eligibility, whether it's having to sit like the old transfers did having some sort of consequences to what amounts to break in a contract. I don't see any, I try to be as player friendly as possible. I don't see any problem with that. Pros have limitations on their contracts. that's.

Chris Huston (29:50.764)
Sure. Yeah.

Bill Connelly (29:52.427)
So working toward that, think is, going to, would solve a lot of that potential disengagement because we are at a situation where like, if your team's awesome, it doesn't matter who's playing. You're, you're in, you're, you're, you're engaged and you're fired up. But if your team's pretty mediocre and you don't have, you don't know any of the players on the field, you don't know any of their names and you're not even playing your rivals and you can't save the season at the end of the year, then I think your odds of disengagement go way up.

Chris Huston (30:04.278)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Connelly (30:20.719)
and trying to address those things I think would help massively.

Chris Huston (30:24.906)
Yeah, and also the concept of the student athlete, was for so long touted, which is basically it's not even a thing. And, I'm just even thinking from the perspective of a student athlete, from the, from the perspective of someone who was attending a college as an athlete, yeah, why would you want to go to like, why would you want to go to four different schools in your, in your, in your college? Like even just like, this is, I feel like no one's talking about how

Bill Connelly (30:30.671)
you

Chris Huston (30:53.76)
hey, this is your, you're still a 18 to 21 year old kid. This is your college days. You're gonna, like college is important for like all kinds of reasons, you socialization skills and networking. And you know, you're not gonna only be hanging out with football players all your life, you know? And like I talked to John Macheer the other day and he has a new major at Oklahoma, but, and he's interested in it, but you know, not all of his credits transferred over. So it's like,

Bill Connelly (31:23.054)
Right.

Chris Huston (31:23.668)
It's like, you know, who knows, but, it's just like, and I'm not one of these purists who asked to, you know, have this impression that everyone is truly a student athlete or cares about college. Not everybody who goes to college cares about going to class. get that. But it's just so brazen. Like everything's just, everything is just so quickly. It's jarring how quickly it's been thrown out.

Bill Connelly (31:46.319)
Yeah, the transfer credit thing is real. Like that's a massive, every time you transfer you're further away from graduating basically. And obviously that creates its own set of issues. mean, I'd like to think that if we get to a part where you've got the collective bargaining, you've got these things that are just, and just that number of overall transfers is reduced, then that does address that to some degree.

Chris Huston (32:10.892)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Connelly (32:14.231)
No, I that's, you know, you can, guess you could spin it around and basically say, well, they were always, you know, steered towards no show degrees anyway. So it's not like they really got a degree. get like, there's obviously some truth in that, but you're right. mean, that is an absolute how, you know, I don't know, like,

Chris Huston (32:21.364)
Right. Yeah.

Bill Connelly (32:33.103)
It is a thing. it's even when transfers were extremely restricted, was kind of a thing. We kind of disregarded academics to a certain degree. And I guess that part hasn't changed, but it's a thing.

Chris Huston (32:46.688)
Yeah. And this is kind of ancillary, but I wanted to ask you because, because I've been meaning to ask. I've been asking a lot of people, but I haven't asked in a while. that is whatever happened to the ineligible athlete.

Bill Connelly (32:58.531)
like prop, what was it? Prop 46? 48, 48.

Chris Huston (33:00.972)
Well, well, Prop 48 was the old one, but, know, everyone qualifies, almost everyone qualifies for school now. And, you know, there used to be this thing where like once every year there'd be like one or two guys who were academically ineligible. They, they, they flunked their summer class, couldn't make it in, had to set out a year. Never happens. I can't remember the last time that I've heard someone being reported as being academically ineligible for the year. So just are you.

Bill Connelly (33:08.335)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (33:13.785)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (33:29.964)
What's going on here? Can you look into that for me?

Bill Connelly (33:32.931)
Yeah, that's just everybody's trying really hard and the tutors are really good at their jobs, know, so that's sure. Yeah, no, that's right. Yeah, no, that is, I mean, obviously, even back in the day, you had the Dexter Manley situations and whatnot where, you know, we kind of guided through, but no, there's no question. you know, the first person to read every single chapter I finished was my father, the former college professor.

Chris Huston (33:37.196)
Well, probably, yeah. That's great. That's solved education.

Bill Connelly (34:01.099)
and so he had plenty of snarky comments along the way. Like I made a mention of how people back the, kind of the anti-playoff folks would always mention finals as a reason. You can't have games in mid December. That's when finals is, but then you have D3 athletes apparently didn't matter. They were, we can have them play during finals. and he would snark back with, yeah, that's a good reason to like just playing the what about game then. But, and he's not wrong, but also like.

Chris Huston (34:14.401)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (34:27.851)
it didn't feel pretty selective like when we cared about it or when we didn't, but that's always been the relationship. There are plenty of academic success stories, obviously, but the relationship between those two when you get fired, if you lose a football game, but you don't get fired if somebody doesn't graduate, that's always been around, I guess.

Chris Huston (34:43.732)
Right. That's a great point. one other proposal I've thought about, and I want to curious what you would think. What if you started the season earlier and you had fewer games in the regular season? What if you went back to nine? What if you just played your, one cop, your entire conference schedule and, and one non-conference like, you know, opponent, played 10 games started in mid August. you'd be done by what is it?

middle November or something. And, and then you would still play 14 games instead of 17 or 16 or 17, it is now if you win, but, uh, you would have basically you would, you would play out the entire season, but you would bring it back and the higher, a larger portion percentage of that season would be in the playoffs potentially.

Bill Connelly (35:35.619)
Yeah. I, well, I mean, we know just from like, know that nobody's ever going to give up money. so that's obviously an obstacle. am along those lines though. Like we're, we're never going go back to 10, but I am very curious. I've almost been kind of disappointed that we haven't explored one of the.

COVID era, phenomenons a little more. And that was, you know, the big 10, big 10 frustrates me constantly, but back in 2020, when they did the thing where. Like everybody plays on conference championship week, like we're just going to pair off teams. Obviously it got completely messed up by positive COVID tests and whatnot. But, the idea that basically we play all but one of our games, everybody. then the 12th game is conference championship game, or, you know, pairing teams off, approximately based on standings to kind of.

to avoid rematches, but play that extra game. That would be, you know, right now, the biggest kind of, strangest part of the schedule to me is, is obviously conference championship weekend where you're, you know, what we saw last year is teams almost suffered from winning their conference title because they ended up apparently rusty in late December and Carson Beck got hurt and all those things. And so there wasn't really a reward there.

It does feel like I hated to play the auto bids, the four auto bids and the play in games and all that idea. But, going to like partially down that road and basically just creating a full weekend slate where maybe it's not a play in game, but three, number three is playing number six and it could have playoff, you know, consequences and everything. I don't see a problem with that at all. And that would at least cut off one and make sure that everybody finishes the season at 12 games. And it wouldn't cost you that much money either.

Chris Huston (37:13.928)
Right. At the end of the day, what worries you the most about the sports future and what gives you hope that Saturdays will always be too perfect to lose as you talk about in the book?

Bill Connelly (37:22.959)
Yeah, I mean, the the evidence for for Saturdays is just, know, we every offseason, we spend eight months complaining and you know, the discourse gets toxic every single year and I hate it and I hate having to care about, you know, how much power this has or the financial leverage over here. Those that's not why I got into this. got into it because of Saturdays and Saturdays are still spectacular. Like that was last year, you know.

I, we all have our own set of grievances, but once, but Saturday was still Saturday. It was still great. Even though Ohio state, Michigan didn't end up meeting what it used to mean. It was still awesome to watch and rivalry week was still great. And the fans were still far, the stands were still full and all that. yeah, like maybe it really is just that while, while sports popularity can rise or fall to a certain degree, maybe it's just, we are just too invested in college football. the hardcore is won't.

leave in the same rate that they did with NASCAR. Maybe that's all true. And I can't really, maybe it is maybe, and I can't dispute that at all. But like I said, the disengagement thing is what I'm most paranoid about and what I have to watch for. Cause like you said, even TV ratings don't really tell us how healthy a sport is if people are just watching it to gamble. And to me that comes down to if we further separate haves from have nots and a lot of people just don't have a reason to think they're really part of that crew.

You know, 50, there's nothing saying 57,000 fans have to keep showing up at Iowa State home games. Um, if the SEC and big 10 just separate themselves to that degree where they're not part of big time college football anymore. Uh, that was one of the examples I used in the book was like, Iowa State fans, like they've never, Iowa States never threatened to usurp anything. They have two top 15 finishes ever. Like they're not taking Texas's place, but

Chris Huston (39:07.937)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (39:09.655)
57,000 show up and we have to make sure that they continue to show up if we want the sport to be as healthy as possible. So that thing, the roster flipping and the disengagement that could come from not relating to your team. Those are my biggest concerns right now. And I feel like a lot of this is just we're in this middle area right now where eventually we'll have something resembling collective bargaining and eventually we'll have this and that. But right now it really is kind of a free for all. And it's been fascinating to watch.

Chris Huston (39:36.076)
It is a revolution in college football that really we've been going through the last few years for sure. The book is forward progress, a definitive guide to the future of college football. author is Bill Connolly of ESPN.com. Thanks Bill for coming on the show is really interesting book and everyone should go out there get it on Amazon and where else could they get it Bill? it's not September 2nd is the debut, right?

Bill Connelly (39:59.001)
Correct. Pre-ordered on Amazon is apparently the best way for algorithm related purposes, but I know you can get it at bookshop.org right now. And also as far as I know, it'll be in actual physical bookstores as well, started next Tuesday. yeah, however you get it, I would certainly appreciate it.

Chris Huston (40:15.349)
That's awesome. know, what I've read so far is outstanding. You're an excellent writer. Looking forward to reading the rest and, curious to see what other ideas you have as we move forward. Commissioner. All right. Well, thanks a lot. We'll see you down the road. Take care. sorry. I have my, my mouse is like, yeah.

Bill Connelly (40:24.751)
Me too. Like that was, that was, I like brainstorming.

Bill Connelly (40:32.3)
Absolutely. Take care.

I don't know the last time I've used a mouse.

Chris Huston (40:41.459)
Yeah. I was like, shit, what am going to do? Cause my, my, my cursor was just frozen like at 11, 20, 11, 28. I'm like, fuck gotta go get it from mouse. I was, anything else that did I hit enough stuff? I mean, I know I talked a lot about a stuff. I just kind of wanted to talk to you in general about a lot of that stuff, just about my thoughts, just because I never get a chance to talk to anybody about it anymore. Cause no one's interested in it, but

Bill Connelly (40:54.871)
No.

Bill Connelly (41:03.183)
Yeah, athletes probably don't have quite the same strongly held opinions, I would figure. No, that pretty much, just looking at the list of chapters, mean, we least touched on pretty much everything. And you're right. I've learned not to be as...

Chris Huston (41:09.79)
Yeah.

Bill Connelly (41:22.371)
to worry about certain things because I do think we've we've absorbed the changes that we've seen so far but you know we never know where the breaking point is and it just doesn't seem like a great idea to keep pursuing it so we'll see

Chris Huston (41:34.183)
Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of, you know, you're unfortunately your employer, think is, is I feel like it's, you know, just the, the McAfee's of his McAfee ization of things.

Bill Connelly (41:43.384)
I-

Bill Connelly (41:47.851)
My buddies and I on the group text from high school have, you know, we just like this shit isn't for us. Like, but we're all so old now. So whatever, like if it's, if it's attracting the audience, they want, then I guess it's fine, but it's not for us.

Chris Huston (41:54.089)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Chris Huston (42:00.256)
Yeah. Yeah. The other thing is that all like, seems like most of the fans are in the Midwest are basically big 10 and sec fans. Now everyone else is kind of like, well, I guess we'll play beach volleyball and watch basketball or something. So

Bill Connelly (42:09.827)
Yep. Yeah. I do think the big 12 is the most interesting conference right now. Not only because of all the close games, but also because you do have like Texas tech is going to try to usurp this whole thing is they're going to try as hard as possible to, to flood everything with oil money. And I can't guarantee that'll result in something good, but I I'm just curious how that goes because that's a lot of programs that think they want to be big time and, we'll do pretty desperate things to get there. So we'll see what the.

Chris Huston (42:30.475)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (42:36.809)
Yeah. And your school is like the, your school is like the median, the median college football team. Right. It's, you know, right. So it's, it's kind of interesting. Like, I guess to some extent, some of these schools, they're going to be, they're just kind of used to disappointment. So they're just going to kind of shrug off a lot of this stuff, but yeah.

Bill Connelly (42:42.767)
Especially within the SEC,

Bill Connelly (42:57.121)
I am. Yeah. And that is kind of funny because I, you know, I know how lucky Missouri was to be good at football at the exact moment that the SEC door was ever going to open. but also, so, I mean, I, I'm very sympathetic. I friends at K state friends at a lot of, ton of friends at Oklahoma state. And, so I know we were lucky and I try to keep that in mind. Other Mizzou folks don't really care. Like no, no, them. We got our, we're here. We're big time now. And that's not really.

Chris Huston (43:07.285)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (43:23.027)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bill Connelly (43:27.068)
the case or it could have easily not been the case, whichever.

Chris Huston (43:28.051)
Yeah. Yeah. I love those chase Daniel years anyway. So anyway, Hey, if, another issue comes up down the road, can I, can I bring you on again just to talk about it?

Bill Connelly (43:39.311)
Certainly, I don't mind talking, I miss podcasting. So it's been a fun few weeks in that regard.

Chris Huston (43:42.685)
Awesome, great. That's great. Well, good luck with your book. I hope you sell a ton.

Bill Connelly (43:47.279)
I appreciate it. Take care.

Chris Huston (43:49.064)
All right, take care. Bye.