Hey, hey, where you been? But got to talk is about to begin. Hey, hey, hey, come on in.

Welcome to Buckeye Talk, the preferred podcast of the college football playoffs expansion working group apparently.

I'm Nathan Baird from Cleveland.com. He's Doug Lamarice and Steven Means Doug back from vacation a triumphant return vacation to find out that the college football playoff committee is running with his idea.

We did this a couple weeks ago on Buckeye Talk and gave our thoughts of which of these possible outcomes the college football playoff committee should go with.

And Doug said 12 and they're going with 12. Do you feel some vindication Doug?

I want to make it clear to people that it is not that I know anything. It's not that I have advanced notice. It's not that I've done secret reporting on the side and that then I say a thing that comes true based on information that I kept to myself to look smart.

I'm just that influential. It's just what I think I pull it out of thin air and the world reacts.

So I mean, I guess if I if I could choose between being informed or being influential, I would I would much rather be influential and I'm clearly not informed.

So to reiterate, pull it out of the clear blue sky and clearly people on the committee listened and here we are.

I don't think it's a coincidence. It can't be a coincidence that we did that podcast like two weeks ago and then all of a sudden 12 teams is a front runner.

I guess I'll I'll let them say it's a coincidence.

I will say I think once you start looking at it and again, I hope the people listening to this now go back and are already did listen to what we did in the middle of May, where we discussed all the options and and I was very strong in favor of 12.

It's so logical like it's what it really makes a lot of sense. And I think once you start talking through it's like well, we're at four and we're going to expand.

I think 12 is where a lot of people land because if you want to have automatic bids for the non power five six isn't you know six rates not quite enough, but you don't want to go all the way to 16.

You want to give the best team some incentive and some reward for finishing the top four. That's where the buys come in. So I do think a lot of people I think it just 12 does make a lot of sense, but I think the frustrating part about this.

People have pointed this out is that this is a money thing. This is all this is only money, right. So when it comes to money. It's like the people in college sports who are in charge are logical and proactive.

And and they're forward thinking and they they they look at all the options and come to a smart consensus.

Even if it takes longer than we want, we admit that. But then like compare this progress to like the NIL foot dragging and it's like that was going to be my point when it comes to acquiring money.

Very proactive. No, exactly. Yeah, giving out the money, giving out if they had to decide the number of teams in a playoff.

And it was about giving out money. They'd be like, well, could you have like two and a half teams in a playoff. Could you get like one teams like they would come up with all kinds of ridiculous things to drag their feet when it's the making money. They're like, oh, let's go to 12 boom, boom, boom, boom.

And it's like it's logical to make sense. So they like money.

To be fair, that is the American way. It's this everybody is going to do everything they can when they get to make the money. Now when you have to start spending money, that's when you start looking for deals.

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