You are listening to the Paul finebaum show podcast. We will hear from Nick Saban momentarily. Not like live on the show, but he had some comments. On Greg mcelroy's podcast, always college football about the mega conferences in the direction of college football. And generally when Nick Saban speaks, you need to listen. So I'm going to listen. My name is Braden Gaul, filling in for Paul here on the Paul 5 bomb show 855-242-7285 before we get to that. Let's go to the phone line. Swami in Tennessee Swami welcome to the show, sir. How are you? Well, hey, thanks for taking my call. The swamp has a couple of things tonight. So first, I heard you talk about this kid the core designer bail quarterback macro. I just curious, is he related to the my brat quarterback for Vanderbilt to played in the mid 70s, both farther round in Nashville there? I will have to check that. I believe he's from Georgia. So I don't know if that matters or not. Okay, there's no problem. It just kind of curious up against Mack right in college. So I was just when you brought that up, I didn't really connect it to that, but I know you won't talk about saving about this conference expansion, but for the strong man, I don't like it. I mean, for me, you know, I say all the rivalries, I may be old school, but I say when you get 25 30 times in the conference, there's no way you're going to have rivalries. I mean, it just goes away. And it's kind of like the live tour and PGA golf or they just pay the paper money. It's out for money. You don't have to do nothing. And just still pay you. And the PGA tournament which has a history like football has a history. So I'm all against this playoff experience. That's the way I had to say that. Thanks for taking my time. I appreciate it, man. I'll do some digging. I know, I believe Mike writes from Georgia, the quarterback for Vanderbilt, who will be in Atlanta next week. I think his parents are from Memphis. I don't know if his dad went to Vanderbilt or not. I can double check that for you. So I can't confirm that for sure either, but according to Vanderbilt's website, his dad is an engineer. So I'm going to go out here and say it's probably not the same guy, but you never know. What are you trying to say? Are you telling me a Vanderbilt can't produce engineers? Because that's a pretty darn good school. No, no, you're right. You're right, but I feel like if that's the one descriptor they would have gone with, I feel like maybe they would have gone like former Vanderbilt quarterback. No, I agree when you look at the bio, it's like they're from Memphis and he's an engineer and so yes, I tend to agree with you that he was not that Mike right. But we digress and into the into the tradition and what's happening with expansion and then the mega conferences. Now I think we have to be very clear here. There is a difference between playoff expansion and conference expansion, right? Two different things. Very different things. They're kind of tied together loosely, but to very different things. This was Nick Saban earlier this week on Greg mcelroy's podcast always college football from ESPN. This was his comments about the mega conferences. You know, there's a lot of tradition, you know, in conferences. That will no longer exist. And I think we've gone through that to some degree in the past, you know, the Oklahoma Nebraska game used to be a big game and they have not been in the same conference for quite some time. Now, if we're playing each other. So that's something, but I think we're going to deal with it in a greater capacity than ever before. Because I think mega conferences are probably here to stay. And, you know, market share market, you know, there's a lot of that involved in why are we doing what we're doing? Nick Saban there with Greg mcelroy on the always college football podcast. And I think what's interesting, listen, if it's Nick Saban talk and we should all listen. And we may not always agree with what he's saying, but he's generally very, very smart about what he's saying and he's thought it through and he certainly knows the impacts of these decisions, portal, name image and likeness, spread offense, et cetera, as well as anybody. He's the greatest coach of all time. He's right, make a conferences aren't going anywhere contractions not going to happen. So he's right with that. And he's right. As we get bigger, tradition becomes a lesser part of the game. Now, I will say, if I'm going to disagree with the great ball coach, I will disagree with one thing, and that is, if they stop right now at 16, if we stop this expansion of the conferences to the mega world at 16 teams, I can make the argument that over time we will gain as many great rivalries as we will lose. Now, I know Oklahoma state fans are probably screaming at their radio right now because losing the bedlam series with Oklahoma and Oklahoma state is atrocious. It is bad for the game. West Virginia and Pittsburgh fans in the backyard brawl, you're screaming at the radio, Kansas, Missouri with the border war. And I would argue what makes college football great is that each one of these rivalries