Welcome in everybody, everybody to the CFB Nation All-America podcast.

I'm Bill Troche, senior editor at SportingNews.com, alongside Bill Bender, our national college football writer at Sporting News.com.

You can follow Bill on Twitter at Bill Bender 92, and you can follow me at Bill Troche and keep an eye on the

main sporting news account at Sporting News. Bill, tell me what's going on up in Big Ten country

as we head into the dead period of the college football offseason and the dead period of the

recruiting season.

I mean, not much.

It was, it's exciting.

You know, we're getting, July 4th, I think everybody, the way I look at the season, Bill, is next week, everybody, let's be honest, they mail it in a little bit.

And then they go to their July 4th cookout.

But when I get to July 4th,

most people say this is when college football starts. To me, it kind of starts on July 4th because

you'll start out, you'll be at that cookout, you'll have conversations with some of the

dadger around and inevitably. I was doing it yesterday at lacrosse practice. I had a half hour

conversation, the SEC versus the Big 10 and which fan bases doing it yesterday at lacrosse practice i had a half hour practice or a half hour conversation

the SEC versus the big 10 and which fan bases care of the most and you know once you start

having those conversations or the look aheads and there is a lot of excitement around of ohio state here

what road game are you going to make Right. Right. And Ohio State.

And so like July 4th to me, once you start having those conversations,

like, hey, media days are like in two weeks.

That's the unofficial start for me because it goes from like talking season to preseason

to, you know, but I looked at a calendar yesterday, Bill.

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