Welcome back to the Cover 3 podcast with your host, Chip Patterson, Tom Fernelli, Danny Cannell, and Bud Elliott.

It's your call for the best college football coverage, from National Signing Day to the National Championship and everything in between.

CBS Sports presents the Cover 3 podcast.

And welcome back to the Cover 3 podcast here on CBS Sports.

That's Bud Elliott, that's Bill Connolly,

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aka A.C.A. the cover three tailgate where they recognize that the start time is unique

because daggummit the show is unique.

This is a privilege.

This is a joy for what is becoming an annual, sometimes two times a year,

check in with our friend, our longtime peer Bill Connolly, Bill from ESPN, where you can see

his writing on college football. You can see him get into tennis. You can see him get into

soccer. And he's got a new book out right now called Forward Progress, the definitive guide to the future of college football. I got a couple, I got a couple Bill C books on the bookshelf. Bill, they challenge me. They say, I don't believe he's read all those books. It's a fair question to ask. And really, it was the books I got at the University of North Carolina that I didn't read. The ones that I've gotten as an adult, like the ones that I've gotten that you have written, of course, get consumed aggressively. So welcome back to the show, fired up to be with you. How we doing? Pretty good. I'd quiz you to make sure you read those first two books, but I don't actually remember what I wrote in those books. It's fine. It was a long time ago. The new one's all that matters. So, you know, everybody go pre-order that. Awesome. Good to see you back. So do we want to talk book first? We want to talk about what just came out, which is the final 2025 ratings, which,

Bill, I didn't have to log in.

Now, you should have any ESPN plus logging because you guys do great work over there,

but this is, this is to the masses again.

We've been freed.

Yeah, for better or worse, you do not need, there is no paywall standing between you and the

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