This week I talk with Matt Brown of SBNation. Matt is Associate Director of College Brands, in other words, my boss.

We talk about the current state of college football with regards to finances and attendance at games, and how, because of student debt, that college football might skip a generation who would otherwise be contributing to their alma maters.

Here’s the Blurb of this episode:

About the Transcript

Keep in mind that the following is a transcript. . I use a service that automates the first draft. As much as “artificial intelligence” is included in the description of every bit of technology these days, it’s clear that computers understanding human speech is more artificial than intelligent. The transcript has been edited to take out human speech bites, you know, um, okay, uh, but it’s not been edited to be an “article”.

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WAIT THERE’S MORE!

Matt wrote a book you might find interesting: What If?: A closer look at college football’s great questions

Transcript

Jon Johnston 0:10

Welcome to Jon’s Post-Life crisis. I am your host Jon Johnston, founder and manager of CornNation.com, your Nebraska Cornhuskers sight of terrific fun, even more fun, galore hours of fun now that the college football season is upon us. This episode we welcome Matt Brown of SB Nation who, by his business card is Associate Director of College Brands. In other words, he’s my boss. Matt has a newsletter about college football, and topics that you should damn well want to subscribe to. We’ll give you that information during the podcast. How you doing today, Matt?

Matt Brown 0:51

I’m doing great. My like my kids are at school. I’m properly caffeinated. We’re so very close to being able to talk about college football games that actually happened instead of in the abstract, which makes everything easier. So I’m doing very well today. How are you?

Jon Johnston 1:12 I never think about that. Ramzy asked me that, the last guy interviewed. And I’m like, I don’t know how I am. If I think about it too much, then I just go - Oh, I’m old and creaky. Nobody wants to hear that.

Matt Brown 1:23

You’re still here. You’re still ticking. This is this is a post-life podcast where you’re actually talking? Well, I think the baseline level here is not so bad.

Jon Johnston 1:35 Good points, I should stay much more positive. Actually, what I need to do is come up with a good response when people ask me “How am I doing?”.

Matt Brown 1:42

Yeah, it’s a it’s a very, so weird American thing I’ve noticed right? In places in Europe or in South America where I’ve been, and you ask somebody that, they’re going to give you an honest answer. Whether like, Hey, I’m depressed lately, or hey, the status quo is actually happening. Whereas in the American English, it’s, it’s almost as if you ask and you’re not exactly expecting an answer. And you have to ask again, it’s just sort of like the small talk ritual sort of thing. I guess.

This podcast is starting in a different direction than anticipated, but let’s go with it.

Jon Johnston 2:16 My wife knows that if I say “FINE” that I’m really angry about something. Okay, well, we’ll we’ll move into the actual content. You have a newsletter called Extra Points. Talk about that. Tell people what it is,

Matt Brown 2:34

I would love to talk about extra points. So the genesis of this project was I am increasingly really interested in a lot of issues that impact college football that aren’t directly related to what happens on the field, or I, you know, there, there’s a common refrain from people that, we want college football to be a refuge from politics or refuge, other things that happened in life and want people to stick to sports, but I think particularly in college football, I think that’s impossible, right?

Most of the teams are large, literally state supported entities. And so how they spend their money, how they get their money, and what they decide to do with that money, like those are literally political decisions. So this is a newsletter comes out at least twice a week, that talks about how sports business, how state politics, how demographic change or culture or the 150 years of college football history, impact what happens on the field, particularly for you as a fan like this is not a Darron Rovell, kind of, you know, newsletter, where we’re digging into, “what are the brands doing for the brand sake”, like, I don’t care about that, I’m only trying to highlight stuff that I think matters for you. It’s launched in late April, and the reviews seem pretty good. We’ve touched upon a lot of different topics over the last two months that really intersect with the finances of the sport, which I think are very relevant right now, but not so easy to understand.

Jon Johnston 4:05 One of those things was recruiting finances. Because USA Today, I believe, did an article on recruiting finances and how much each school is spending on their recruiting. And you pointed out that there’s a lot of discrepancies in how schools report their finances.

Matt Brown 4:24

Yeah, and and this is a big picture problem. In a lot of ways, you know, the USA Today published this thing a couple of days ago, I think Stadium actually had this data, mostly first, earlier in this month, you know, here’s a spreadsheet of how much every power five program reports to the NCAA that they spend on recruiting. And the teams at the top are probably the ones you’d expect, your Georgia or Clemson to LSU’s teams, they’re spending well, north of a million dollars a year at the bottom are also teams you’d probably expect, right? Like Kansas State is near the bottom, they’re spending, you know, about a half a million, Purdue is a little bit lower, some of these teams aren’t really getting blue chip kids or even regular chip kids, you know, are not spending as much. But there’s a lot of variants in the middle, like Ohio State a team that’s my alma mater, they’re generally a top five recruiting program, they’re flying all over the country to get kids and I think they weren’t even listed on top 15 for spending in Kansas, which is essentially an FCS football program at this point was was above them.

And I remember reading that for the first time and thinking like, there’s just no way in hell, that Kansas just spending more money on football recruiting than Ohio State. So I I’m going to, I’m going to get to the bottom of this, I sent a couple of FOIAs to go get itemized expenses, which is something that USA Today and Stadium mostly did not provide. And then I called it a couple of people who work in recruiting operations. And I was basically just like, explain this to me, like I’m an idiot, because I am an idiot, like how does this work.

And what people were telling me was like, you know, sometimes if a school owns a private plane, but some really big state schools do, and you get on that plane to go fly to California to go talk to a recruit, that money doesn’t show up on your recruiting expenses, that’s just general operating budget, so the school can like write off an extra, you know, $40k off that one trip. Some schools when they’re hosting big official visits for kids, some of the money they spend on food, or on setting up the tents and the tables to the personnel that put that in different recruiting bucket to. And and so this is interesting of just a hardcore nerd, because I think a lot of people look at that data. And then they go like, Well, hey, you know, Wisconsin, they win a lot of football games, and they don’t, they don’t seem to spend very much on recruiting, they’re being very efficient. Maybe, but you know, we don’t know for sure, unless we actually get really deeper into the end of that data.

But I think this is this is much more important. Because we’re in the middle of a bunch of big conversations about what college football programs can afford, whether can they afford to remain in FBS? Can they afford to spend big on on athletic infrastructure? Can they afford to give more money or resources to the students, and we don’t know exactly what they can afford? Because what their what schools are reporting for their finances, which they’re obligated to do as public entities, is not terribly clear. So when you when you read a stat that says, hey, listen, only 22 college football teams are making a profit, or most of the schools are broke?

You shouldn’t believe them.

Get into that math a little bit more. The reality is is not what exactly was being depicted.

Jon Johnston 7:42 There’s there’s no standard reporting on how universities have to, they’re reporting to the NCAA. Right.

Matt Brown 7:50

Yeah, you said that there’s reports the NCAA, there’s other reports that they have to send to the Department of Education, which is why we can get ballpark figures for how big private school athletic departments are. But these are these are massive institutions. You know, even a small athletic department at this point has a $50 million budget, $40 million budget, that’s to employ hundreds of people. And that’s just a small part of a university as a whole. And all these budgets are connected, some of this is going to go in athletic operations, and it goes in athletic recruiting, some of it might go in information technology.

And you’re right, there’s not a standard way that every school has to report every specific kind of expense, and maybe doing it that way is impossible. But if you don’t have it, if you’re not a CPA, and friends, I definitely am not. And you don’t get the very itemized detailed reports that you generally have to file an open records request to get, you’re not going to get a complete picture. The biggest thing that jumps to mind is what school said they spend on scholarships. You know, if you look at the USA Today database, or if you listen to talking to some other, athletic directors, they’l say, Hey, you know, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships, that limits our ability to do stuff, but like, they’re not really spending that.

They’re writing a check to the school. And the school kind of picks an arbitrary number for what that scholarship is because they’re generally going to pick like the full tuition price for an out of state resident, which is not what most people are doing. So like the actual cost of that scholarship is much closer to the opportunity cost of whether a student you know, whether you’re admitting a kid there or not. And for a lot of really big schools, that cost is very small. And suddenly, that’s an easy way to make your profitable athletic department look like it’s running a deficit, which you may want to do for political reasons.

Jon Johnston 9:40 I get that. I mean, here’s a small example of that every scholarship athlete should be able to go to the bookstore and get their books for free. Do they get charged back to the athletic department? Are those things in place? Nobody would know that, only each university would understand that transaction and how their their budget is constructed around all of the stuff that goes into athletics, and you have hundreds of athletes for what is it? I think Nebraska is 22 sports. Penn State has maybe 26.

Matt Brown 10:14

Yeah, most schools in the Big 10. You know, I think it’s the Big 10 and the PAC 12 generally sponsor more varsity sports than anybody in the country. These are really big, athletic departments beyond just the the 85 people that you’ve got on a football team, which is, I think, good for the university as a whole. It enriches your experience. It’s fun if you live in Lincoln, but you know, it creates other complications, too, that maybe Florida or Kentucky or Alabama don’t necessarily have.

Jon Johnston 10:42

So you mentioned you thought this was part of a bigger picture about college football and like finances.

Matt Brown 10:52

I think one of the big stories nationally, this offseason has been about the health of this sport generally, like it’s not a secret that almost every school is struggling with declining attendance. And that might be for a really big school, it might mean you’re down a couple thousand people. That doesn’t necessarily appreciably change the game day experience. And for smaller schools, it could be very significant.

Jon Johnston 11:17 You’re talking about attendance at college football games.

Matt Brown 11:19

At college football games, especially for students, but people generally, if there were 1000 people less at my alma mater, at Ohio Stadium, that the athletic department bean counters will notice because those tickets have a face value of 60 bucks. But the stadium still going to be plenty loud. If you take 1000 people away from Middle Tennessee State, people are going to notice. That becomes worse for for everybody. And there’s there’s a lot of reasons for this. But if you are school in the group of five, or in the FCS, and you don’t have a $50 million a year TV check coming in, like Nebraska is about to or you know, like Ohio State or like Michigan does. Losing some of that attendance, money is a big deal, especially if it’s from kids. Because what you’re hoping for is that kids go on discounted tickets, they go to football games, they fall in love with the experience, they graduate, they buy season tickets, and they become donors and boosters and financially support the athletic department for the next 45, 50 years.

There’s some real concern that we’re going to skip a generation either because they don’t fall in love with that gameday experience or with football the same way because I’m not showing up, or because they’re broke. And they owe $65,000 in student loans, and they don’t have the money to write a check back to the university. They don’t have the money to spend 300 bucks to go watch a football game against FCS Southwest A&M Tech. And then you start to have some bigger financial issues. And for a Nebraska or an Ohio State or Michigan or a UCLA, you’re insulated from some of those problems somewhat, but for a lot of programs in FBS and division one generally. I don’t think you are. And then it becomes pretty important to really understand where the money is, where it’s going, how much there actually is because then I think we’re not too far from the point where I think some schools are going to have to make some uncomfortable decisions.

Jon Johnston 13:19

Right, and at Nebraska, I mean, it’s not a matter of are we going to attend the game, it’s a matter of Oh my god, the sellout streak back to 1962 might be in jeopardy, you would be shocked at how much people worry about that. We’re not right now because Scott Frost, the Second Coming or our Savior came back. And you know, everybody’s excited about what he can do. But again, this the next generation of which, apparently, Pat Fitzgerald just says everybody’s looking at their phones too much. And if they just stopped that, they’d all go to college football games, but it gets to be a little bit more than that.

Scheduling. They could schedule better.

Matt Brown 14:02

Yeah, I think that’s a huge component. And what’s unfortunate is because so many of these schools have scheduled a decade in advance that even I think now you’re seeing a correction, right? Like some of these big name SEC schools, some of which are already cutting their athletic budgets, like Auburn and Ole Miss, have made financial cuts this year, which six years ago would have seemed unthinkable, okay, these are enormous departments, they’ve got a fat SEC deal, why would they? Why would they ever need to cut anything, and they’re already starting to feel some of this contraction. But I think they’re starting to realize that, hey, it’s a lot more fun to have a good team on campus, rather than playing a game in Dallas, or Atlanta and a neutral site to begin the season.

But the problem is when they’re making that course, correction, you’re not going to see that new game for eight years. Like, and, and there’s just there’s not enough room, or ability to start putting games that people are actually going to watch in the stadium quickly enough to potentially save anybody’s job. I think the quality of the game, not just out of conference, but in conference is definitely a major factor for this.

I’m an Ohio State guy. My alma mater has to play Rutgers every single year, and those games are going to suck for 30 years. And every time they’re playing Rutgers, they’re not playing Nebraska, they’re not playing Wisconsin, they’re not playing Iowa, they’re not playing some schools that Ohio State has had a connection with for 100 years and people are going to care about even if that team isn’t necessarily good. You’re right. I think you guys are insulated from this a little bit from Scott frost. But there’s probably several schools that a lot of your fans have a deeper emotional connection to, that you’d probably rather play or have a close relationship with than Maryland. But that’s the world we live in right now.

Jon Johnston 15:46 It is. We have obviously a Facebook page for CornNation. And I tend to have my guys write mostly about Nebraska stuff. And I tend to focus more on the big 10 and broader topics such as we’re discussing in college football. There are times at which I will post an article on Facebook, and people would literally ask, “Why are you posting a photo of an Ohio State player? This is a Nebraska page.” And I have to ask, why do I care if Auburn’s cutting its budget? Why do I care if Ohio State has to play Rutgers? You know what I mean? Why do I care about what happens in other places, because Nebraska just lives in a vacuum. We all go to games. And we have Scott Frost - Did I mention that?

Matt Brown 16:33

I’ve heard. And forgive me, happy Scott Frost Day.

Jon Johnston 16:37 Thank you.

Matt Brown 16:40

You guys are a rare exception, I think in the sport right now where you’re somewhat insulated from some of these forces. But that can change really quickly. Hopefully, Frost is there for 20 years, and brings in the second coming of our Lord, and He reigns for a millennium of peace and justice. And that would be lovely. But things in the sport change quickly. And Scott Frost can leave and you get another Bill Callahan, and suddenly you have some of these kinds of similar things.

But to a Nebraska fan, I think what I would say is, we live in an ecosystem where the success of Nebraska and the success of this sport as a whole is connected even though the sport is Super Regional. Do I understand why you like, hey, why do I care if Louisiana Lafayette some trouble? You might not, but that’s a team that you could potentially play and Nebraska’s budget is balanced off playing, corn cob opponents in the beginning of the season that you typically beat by 70. And if they’re facing extinction, or if they might leave FBS, or if the ecosystem gets gets changed a little bit, that’s going to matter for Nebraska volleyball, that’s going to matter for Nebraska gymnastics, or some of the other things that you want to do. If there are headwinds that are hurting the some of the less blue blood teams at the Big 10 like Nebraska, fans should probably want Illinois to not suck forever. Because that’s going to that’s going to help your schedule, it’s going to help make things better for Nebraska.

I understand why you might look with schadenfreude at something bad happening to Auburn, you know, and as a Midwestern college football fan, I think that’s your birthright like I get it. I understand, you know, your listeners not shedding any tears for what’s happening here with the PAC 12. But we’re not so completely isolated as you might think. And if there are things that are making some programs within the sport less healthy, I think eventually they will have an impact on Nebraska too.

Jon Johnston 18:44 You’ve got this the future we’re worried about whether or not people are going to attend football games. The TV contracts look like they’re they’re swimming in money right now. Because they are at least the Big 10 and the SEC. Right? The two conferences we really care about. You mentioned this could all change very quickly. What do you think? I mean, America is right now almost like trying to talk itself into a recession. TV contracts are going to come up for renewal in the next few years. College athletic departments continue to build Taj Mahal facilities. And resorts. Didn’t somebody build something with sleeping chambers?

Matt Brown 19:33

That would be LSU. The school that whose library to be rebuilt right now. It has infrastructure damage across campus. Yes. Built, built what looks like something straight out of Mass Effect.

Jon Johnston 19:47 Wow, what’s going to happen if we hit something with a TV contracts aren’t coming in? We do go into recession. You know what I mean? Let’s say that happens? What do you think is the difference result of that in terms of college football?

Matt Brown 20:02

Yeah, I know. That’s something that I would want almost every athletic director to have a good answer for. The last time we had a recession, just you know about when I graduated college, and that meant that my generation lost earning potential that we’ll probably never get back. It was pretty harmful across the sport industry. General college football was a little bit insulated, like nobody dropped to FCS because of it, but we had a think we had a WNBA team fold. We had, you know, problems much across a lot of professional sports. Generally, it was really bad for minor league baseball. We’re already facing, I think some headwinds as a collective that maybe we weren’t as much a thing in 2007 2008 2009.

What my big worry, is, if we have a recession, that’s going to really damage attendance. And it’s going to, I think it’s going to have a pretty negative and some of the local communities surrounding some of these these teams. Ohio State has has an outsized economic impact in Columbus. But Columbus is also a really big city. You know, Nationwide Insurance is headquartered there, other things are going on. But if people aren’t going to Starkville or State College, and they’re not selling out that stadium, and they’re not spending $350 a night at the one Mariott in State College, they’re not buying a bunch of T shirts, that hurts that community substantially, even for people who are not directly related to that University’s football team.

Jon Johnston 21:36 You go to a Nebraska game. I guess as a fan, maybe it’s different. But I go to a Nebraska game and I just, you know, you’re credentialed so you see the behind the scenes stuff, and you see all the vendors and all the people selling t shirts and books and footballs and autograph stuff. And then you go inside, and you see all the stuff that happens behind the scenes with the media and things like that. And you are you get like, I don’t want to say it hits you in the face, I guess I just did. But it’s very apparent of how much of a commercial entity this thing is. What game day means to Lincoln, Nebraska is massive.

Matt Brown 22:16

It’s a huge business. And it’s been a huge business, honestly, for at least 100 years. And I think that’s one of the things that that frustrates me I think when I hear usually journalists or columnist at a certain age kind of wax nostalgic for what called you know, a more morally righteous college football before big business. So before before became a big thing, right? And they’re usually talking about what it was like before the deregulation of the NCAA cable TV deal. Alright, so this, you know, the really big money for cable TV started hitting in the late 80s, early 90s, even though the deregulation happened, I think in 84, but this I mean, what we’re describing here, that’s been a thing since Yale, that’s been you know, we look up at what the attendance was like for the Chicago Maroons and what that meant for this city and what that meant for this greater infrastructure.

Like it’s all been there. There was no unsullied past. And I think that’s like a kind of professional hobbyhorse for me was part of why I wrote my book. And that’s something that we talked about a lot. For Extra Points here, too, I do want to the other thing that I think we really might see that’s going to make things worse for fans is a recession would be devastating to an already really precarious local media situation.

A lot of the of the newspapers that cover college towns in this country are either owned by Gannett are owned by Gatehouse. those are two of the biggest newspaper chains in the country. That’s where when I very first started my journalism career, I used to write for a paper in Newark, Ohio, which is owned by Gannett. And those two companies are merging. When those companies merged, typically what happens is people’s jobs get lost to pursue efficiencies, right. So I think that’s going to happen for a fair amount of you know, these newspapers in places like South Bend and Starkville and Gainesville, some of these smaller places, but if there is a recession, and consumer spending on digital subscriptions, slows or is spending from major brands on advertisement slows, that’s going to rock almost every newspaper. And even for a place like Nebraska, where I imagine you probably have between newspapers, radios, blogs, TV stations probably have more than 20 people on the Nebraska beat.

For people outside like those top 12 programs...

Jon Johnston 24:45 There’s probably more, there’s probably more than 20 people on the on the beat for baseball alone.

Matt Brown 24:53

I remember I was blown away. The one time I covered a volleyball game at Nebraska. One, there’s like it was sold out. There’s 12,000 people, right, I never seen that a volleyball game before. But then there’s like, there’s 10 people in the media room. And you know, Ohio State which also has excellent volleyball programs, there’s going to be a student reporter and maybe one other guy. Your beat is gigantic, but for most schools, that’s not the way it is. And if there’s a recession, you’re going to see fewer people in that room. And that means you’re going to get worse coverage, you’re going to get less adversarial coverage means people are going to get away with things, or you’re just not going to know about what’s going on with your team. And that hurts everybody.

Jon Johnston 25:33 Especially hurts the people that were working at the newspapers. Unfortunately, a lot of people say they care about newspapers, but they really don’t you know what I mean? They don’t subscribe. They don’t keep them healthy. So yeah, I think the thing about that is they’re like they take it for granted. But then when it’s gone, they all go, Oh, my God, what happened to that?

Matt Brown 25:54

It’s funny when I first started at SB Nation, I know around 2014. I think for people around my age, you kind of got into digital blogging, or digital new media. And you know, over the last decade. The beginning, I think we looked at newspapers as the bad guy, right. Like we looked at the middle-aged columnist who every paragraph was a different sentence, and clearly didn’t research things very well. And didn’t like the sport anymore. And I think most people listening can imagine somebody like that, think like, screw that guy, I’m going to be faster, I’m going to be funnier, I’m going to be smarter, I know how to use the Internet, and that guy doesn’t. And I’m going to win. And for a while we did. But it was immensely satisfying. For me, I can go look at my blog that had like $1,000 budget, when I first started, get more web traffic than the Columbus Dispatch, covering Ohio State, which wouldn’t happened for a couple of times here in the beginning.

But at the end of the day, a lot of what makes news on Twitter and a lot of what makes our blogs and a lot of the next digital media successful is aggregation. And that I don’t think that’s a criticism. This isn’t i think that that really does have a place within media to be able to, to amplify and analyze, you know, another report, but if the newspapers all go extinct, or if they start cutting, there’s nothing to aggregate and getting on the ground and doing news gathering [inaudible] be able to survive, but like there’s gonna be some good football programs. I’m thinking like Memphis, or Cincinnati, you know, which, which are papers that are covered in this merger that don’t have huge beats to I think could potentially really be at risk.

Jon Johnston 27:35 Wow.

I know we said we’re going to go 45 minutes, but I am getting texts and yelled at by somebody whose systems are falling apart. And I wish that didn’t happen. But that’s what happens when you run a site and it’s not a full time job. I want you to tell people about your newsletter, and how they can subscribe.

Matt Brown 28:00

So Extra Points comes out at least twice a week.

It’s generally about 1500 words covers sports, business, media, politics, history, and culture stories that impact college sports, you can subscribe at MattBrown.substack.com. There is a link from my Twitter account. That’s @MattSBN.

I hope you enjoy it most most people who have who have been following along and reading have said pretty positive things. And sometimes, you know, I give away books or we give away some other special deals. And hopefully it’s worth your while.

Jon Johnston 28:37

I will include this information in show notes. You also mentioned that you’ve written a book.

Matt Brown 28:44

I have. I wrote a book called “What If: A closer look at college football’s great questions” came out. Shoot, i guess it’s been about two years now takes a look at some of the big historical events in college football and how things might have turned out a little bit differently.

Jon Johnston 29:01 Like if Bob Devaney never came to Nebraska,

Matt Brown 29:04

Exactly, which he almost didn’t he was like Nebraska is like third or fourth or third or fourth choice for that job. So there’s, there’s a whole chapter about Nebraska, there’s a couple of chapters about the old timey big 10. And there’s some stuff about like the metro conference and conference realignment plans, that almost happens.

So that book is on Amazon, it’s I think $16 you can get it in some brick and mortar stores, I think you may enjoy it too.

Jon Johnston 29:31 I’ll also include that in the show notes. Anything else that we obviously I’m skipping some things that we should have talked about. But again, I’m getting distracted. Arrghhh.

Matt Brown 29:45

It’s okay, it’s a it’s a busy morning, I just encourage you to subscribe if you’re interested. Like,

I know this may have come off as a very pessimistic kind of podcast like I don’t think that the we’re headed towards like, or headed towards college football pocalypse necessarily. There are definitely some people who are skeptical about some trends in American higher education that I think will be impossible to incite college football from but I still love the sport. I’m still really excited about this season, I think there’s going to be some really fun things going on, you know, happening this year.

So I you know, I encourage you to follow along with what I’m doing and what my colleagues are doing and across SB Nation and doing that I think this is gonna be a fun year.

Jon Johnston 30:30 I’ll give you the same compliment that Ramzy gave us on the podcast I did about Ohio State with him. I open your newsletter and read it because I like to read it not because I feel like Oh god, it’s Matt Brown. I should look at that so I know what he’s talking about.

Matt Brown 30:46

That is that’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me, Look, man, I’m just trying to make an email that doesn’t suck. We get so many emails that stuck. I want I want this one to be interesting. And and so far, you know, most of the people seem to like it, or at least at least they’re being very polite and not telling me that it sucks to my face, which I appreciate

Jon Johnston 31:07 That’scause it doesn’t suck. I don’t think unless you’re really, like, this has to be about X’s and O’s analysis, and I signed up for it and it’s not. You do it very well. You write very well. I enjoy reading them. They keep me up to date on stuff because sometimes I get behind and I’m still supposed to do things like this where I’m doing a podcast, and at least acting like I’m staying in touch with what’s going on in college football. When I’m really just praying that the football season starts and this Saturday it does when Miami takes on Florida, thank god and then we can watch them fight. That’s what I’m looking forward to.

Matt Brown 31:45

I can’t wait brother. I actually have to go right now to unfortunately. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. And I look forward to enjoying this season with you and your site over the coming weeks.

Jon Johnston 31:57 All right. Thank you and thank you listeners for listening to Jon’s Post-life crisis. I hope you are not as distracted as we are and you’re having a good healthy week. Take care, please subscribe and have a good week. Welcome college football.

Goodbye.