Hey, hey, where you been, but got to talk is about to begin, hey, hey, hey, come on in, back to the Tuesday Bucket Talk

Bluba.com, Doug Lamarace here, recording this Tuesday morning, early, had a good conversation on Monday evening with Christina M. Johnson, Ohio State University President, and Gene Smith, the Athletic Director, after Christina Johnson had been named to the College Football Playoff Board of Managers a couple of weeks ago, I said, hey, can we talk about that? So, Ohio State set that up. We did it on Monday night on a Zoom for about 30 minutes, just me and the two of them. So, we had a good conversation. That's going to be what this podcast is about today.

I was going to maybe run some clips about the audio recording isn't the greatest. So, I'm going to sort of just paraphrase what we talked about, but I will start in reverse. We talked about some big picture stuff. The main thing is, I'm trying to get a handle on for you guys. I mean, I just think it's interesting, and I present this to them. You guys know my philosophy now. Here's my interview people is. Here's my theory. What do you think? So, the idea that Ohio State is rare, maybe among athletic programs in terms of their desire to

compete at the highest level, but also doing it through the lens of the Big Ten, which I think we just all know that's just sometimes a little bit different, just a little bit different, maybe then what schools on the SEC are doing. So, that idea of how much can Ohio State be a leader in this new era of college sports with Christina M. Johnson on the College Football Playoff Board of Managers? And shortly after she was appointed to that, that is an

oversight group for the College Football Playoff. They don't do the hands-on investigating, the figuring out of stuff. There are committees that do that, and there's another board that's made up of all the conference commissioners, but as Jean Smith reminded me, and in the middle of that conversation, said, that group of commissioners reports to the board, the board of managers who's made up of the university president. So, it's a president from each conference that had been the Penn State president now it's Christina Johnson. So, here's the main thing.

Shortly after Christina Johnson is appointed as the Big Ten rep, Jean Smith starts floating the idea of, do we maybe start having the rules and guidance and the oversight of football through the College Football Playoff Committee rather than through the NCAA? That football, Jean really did mean to top 130 teams. Everybody in FBS, right? All those 10 conferences, the power five conferences, plus the Mac,

and the Sun Belt, the Mountain West, and everybody else. They break off just in football and have their own rules about things, and it's the College Football Playoff, that is in charge of that. That idea came on the heels of Christina Johnson joining the board of managers of the College Football Playoff. If we create a world where the new era of rules and regulations of college sports, especially College Football, is going to be under the auspices of the College Football Playoff.

Now there's an important Ohio State voice on there. I don't think that was timing or anything by Jean, but to me it added the impact of how important it is for that Christina Johnson is potentially on that board.

And then Jean Smith, though, did sort of say again, was she sent it a couple interviews since then that he's basically just throwing out ideas. Is this going to be where we are? That we are going to get to the point where football is viewed separately and football at the highest level

is guided separately. He said, no, I don't know if we're going to get there, but I just want to start the conversation. So the hard thing is, how do you get from conversation to action?

It does seem like they think that is going to happen sooner than later. There weren't great answers about how you get from conversation to action.

Right, but it does feel like Ohio State might be at the heart of that. I think Ohio State should be at the heart of that because Ohio State has a program that is again, especially in football, once it competed at the highest level, but does throw through the lens that the big 10 has on college athletics. So we talked a little bit about that.

Talked a little bit more about the specifics of collectives, a little more about the specifics of some other things in football, but we'll start off.

I was diving in more first on the divisions. This was Christina and Johnson had to get off after half an hour. And then I just said, jean, jean, jean, jean, at the end, can we talk about this? So I asked you to make the about divisions.

And this is a hands-on football thing, divisions in the big 10. And he said, you know, they've been having their meetings. They had their latest meetings a couple of weeks ago, the big 10. This is what all the conference meetings happen.

They have a couple more meetings scheduled the next couple of weeks. He said, they have to get this figured out sooner than later because they're not going to move on change anything for 2020.

But they might do it by 2023. And if you do it by 2023, you have to do it now because he said, for instance, one of the things that happens is that schools start booking their hotels for their road game travel the summer before.

So he said they are soon at that point where you've got to be able to book 2023 travel.

So you can't be mucking around with the schedule forever. So it sounds like they're going to come to a conclusion soon.

And he was non-committal, but it certainly sounds like to me that the big 10 is going to change.

The Michigan State Athletic Director was at something on Monday at a seminar, you know, at a thing where he and Tom is and Mel talker were talking.

He was asked about it. His phraseology was like realignment is coming. He didn't get specific about it.

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