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Guys, it's time for one of those good old-fashioned 24-7 sports realignment roundtables. We've got the entire crew here. Blake Brock, I'm our newest on the scene. So, of course, he gets first introduction, but we've got Brandon Marcello on board. We got Bud Elliott on board. We got Chris Hummer on board. And, guys, we have got a lot to talk about. We have fielded questions for the better part of two and a half weeks now about everything from who's going where. What does conference realignment even mean? And so let's just take a little while here. There's no beginning and end. We can go as long as we want to. But conference realignment, the first thing I want to throw out, given all that we know and all that we've seen so far, anybody can take it to start, is what has surprised you the most in this whole ordeal?

I'll take the first one. I think I'm a little bit surprised at two things. One, how far ahead of the curve, the SEC is. I think they're very forward thinking. I think Texas and Oklahoma was kind of ahead of the curve.

The SEC was ahead of the curve and thinking ahead of the future of college football and college athletics.

And then counterpoint that kind of maybe there's a surprise factor involved,

but how much further behind and lagging that the other conferences are

because you

really haven't seen anyone else do anything yet. The PAC 12, the Big Ten, and the ACC, and the only

thing that you've really read is, you know, some of these teams want to join the SEC. So I think the

SEC is ahead of the curve, and I think they're a little bit more forward thinking than some of the other conferences are right now in the future of college athletic. Hummer and Marcelo, I know both you guys sort of on the reporting end of this have been on the ground out there in Big 12 territory. So Chris, I'll start with you and then we'll go to Brandon. You know what the fallout is, at least from a public perception, we felt it, but behind the scenes out there, aside from the obvious, which Bob Bowlesby telling us, he was taken by surprise. What's been your biggest surprise in this whole thing? I mean, frankly, the fact that the Big 12 was so caught off guard by this is kind of shocking. It's not new that the grant of rights is coming up in 2025 for the Big 12. The Big 12 had approached its partners at ESPN and Fox, I think early this spring about potentially re-uping kind of that deal in the future. And both those companies said, let's hold off, which is not a great sign for the league in the future, because if they're not only to pay you more money now and you approach them about that, your members can get a little antsy. And that's what kind of happened with Texas Oklahoma.

And from Texas perspective, like they were thinking about the future of college athletics way back in the fall. Jay Hartzl said as much last night at the Texas Capitol. And the fact that the league

as a whole did not have any inkling this was happening is concerning for the Big 12's future. And I do think

that's a pretty significant aspect of this. I know we've discussed it a lot, like how crazy it is about Bulls we didn't know. But when that type of secret is kept for so long and it catches so many other significant members of not only that conference, but nationally surprised, it's a credit to what Greg Sanky is doing, as Blake said, but it's also kind of a significant move in the college football infrastructure about where we're going, because a lot of these schools and a lot of these conferences weren't really considering conference rean alignment until about two weeks ago, which, as Blake said, puts the SEC way ahead of the game. Brennan, what about you? I'm surprised to be quite honest, and like how crazy everybody has reacted to all this about, well,

this just means super conferences are coming and this team's going to go to that conference.

No, Big Ten is not going to expand unless teams come to them and they're good teams, good

programs that they're considering.

Pack 12, maybe they'll consider things.

But I think we're jumping to way

too many conclusions that we're just going to see this massive realignment across the country.

I'm not even so certain it's going to be anything equal to what we saw back in 2010 through

2012 and 13. I'm not seeing that because what you're seeing with Texas and OU going to the SEC are pretty much outside of Notre Dame the biggest blue bloods that would probably even consider moving from conference to conference. And also when you just look at all the details, especially when it comes to ACC teams, we talk about grant of rights. No one from the ACC is going to jet from that conference

unless they're ready to just give up money for the next 15 years. The only way there is something

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