The ROAR Podcast: A.J. Edds

# ROAR Podcast: A.J. Edds
**Guest:** A.J. Edds
**Date:** 2026-01-28
**YouTube URL:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHB6l78GwXA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHB6l78GwXA)
**Source:** YouTube auto-generated captions (no speaker diarization)

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(0:05) How sports and it continued evolution are often discussed on this podcast. Regardless of that evolution, one thing remains consistent, the popularity of college athletics. Many things contribute to that popularity, the players, the coaches, the competitive nature of the sports. An often overlooked aspect of that popularity is the talented individuals that are the engine of college athletics. Our guest today, AJ Eds, is a vice president of football operations for the Big 10 Conference, and someone whose career path offers a rare 360 degree view of the game. AJ's journey starts in Indiana High School football, continues through a standout career at the University of Iowa where he was three-year starter and a team captain, extends into six seasons in the National Football League, and ultimately lands him back in the Big 10 Conference office where he now helped shape the future of Big 10 football every single day. In this conversation, we unpack what that transition really looks like. How intentional networking and patience helped AJ move from the field to the front office. why education, athlete development pulled him toward college sports. Now, lessons from Iowa, the NFL, and youth sports continue to shape his leadership philosophy today. We also go inside Big 10 football operations covering scheduling, officiating, replay, and command centers, postseason bowl relationships, NCA rules work, and what it actually takes to keep one of the most complex ecosystems in sports running smoothly. Along the way, AJ shares thoughtful perspective on realignment, college football playoff, NIL, the transfer portal, revenue sharing, and the challenge of modernizing college football without losing what makes it special. This conversation is about leadership, governance, preparation, and opportunity pulled by someone who's lived the game at every level. If you ever wondered how college football really works behind the scenes, or how skills developed through sports translate into high impact careers, enjoy this episode with AJ. I'm Bryce Clinton and this is a Revenue Above Replacement Podcast.

(2:05) >> AJ, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today. >> Yeah, thanks Bryce. Looking forward to it and I appreciate the outreach and um yeah, should have a great conversation. >> There's so many great things to talk about. You know, before we started recording, we were talking about upbringings in Indiana and playing high school football in Indiana and the state of college football today. But if you look back, you know, you have a really interesting job now in in operations and vice president of football operations with the Big 10 Conference, and I really want to dig into that. But, you know, you've had such a unique path from being a high school standout high school athlete, student athlete from a college perspective, playing in the NFL, and now where you're at at the Big 10. When you look back at that, what moments or decisions kind of shaped that transition that you've had into the front office or really built that that want to be where you are today?

(2:49) >> That's probably a great starting point. Um, you know, I don't know if there was any, you know, one moment or a series of moments that necessarily stand out as much as the things that really, I guess, resonate with me. I tried to I was really intentional with talking to people in the industry and asking questions of people in the industry as much as I had access to do so to formulate some opinions and to get some feedback and to really educate my perspective as much as reasonably could expect to do um to to make sure that I was heading in the right direction. And for me, once once my my uh athletic career came to an end, 2015, I had an inkling of what I wanted to do, having had played at a relatively successful level um at Iowa in the Big 10 and then going on into the NFL for a handful of years, had a unique perspective into both worlds, collegiate and professional. And I was always drawn to the collegiate model, the opportunity to bind education with athletics and really just as impactfully the chance for young people to to really better themselves using athletics as the model or as the mechanism rather to do so to go pursue scholarship and to to go and pursue an education. Whereas in the professional world, it was pretty stark to me. It's about winning games and um you know turning a profit where available and where where uh applicable. So as the son the the son of two former educators the idea of education being linked to uh athletic pursuit really was was what stood out to me. So understanding that as I concluded my playing career, started to get really intentional with spending some time with people that were maybe in my network or folks I was hoping to add to my network and decided that when the opportunity presented itself that I was going to really put my for my my full weight and and support of what I could into that that opening of the door. and I didn't really know what it would be and where it would come from and what the the model would look like.

(5:15) And so at the time, um, shortly after finishing my playing career, um, took a little bit of a a reset gap, so to speak, and then got working in the sales industry, knowing that it probably wasn't the end- all beall for me, at least at that point in my career and in my life. So, I was keeping a pretty diligent eye open in the Chicagoland land area um for opportunities and along the way networking and getting to getting to to spend some time with some people and reconnecting with folks that I had spent time with previously, whether it was during my time at the University of Iowa, during time at different stops along the way in my NFL career, folks that I was able to meet um postplaying career and very fortunately was in the right place at the right time being in Chicago when a role was posted that I ultimately interviewed and was a successful candidate for at the Big 10 and started at the Big 10 in 2017. So, this is a pretty long-winded way to say that one of the really key things for me and some good advice I got early on was don't be afraid to grow where you're planted. so long as the key fundamentals and priorities and principles of the place are what you're looking for in a career opportunity. And for me, the Big 10 was just that. It was the things that were important to me. I was surrounded by good people, smart people. I was being giving being given enough opportunity to feel like I was advancing and growing. And early in my career, uh I say early from a professional experience perspective, maybe not early age-wise, it become at least for me, it was um it felt like every so often I needed to be moving and elevating and advancing and growing. And I was at one of those moments in a a um a person that's in my network and consider a mentor of mine, shared the comment and the the observation. Don't be afraid to, you know, stay put. Don't be afraid to let folks know where you're at. You need to make sure folks, nobody's a mind readader. Make sure they're aware. Um take their feedback in stride based on what they say. You be prepared for whatever they might tell you. But uh unless there's something you just can't withstand, don't move just to move um within within all things considered unless there's extenduating circumstances elsewhere. So that was that decision um early on at the Big 10 to stay put and to learn, to observe, to soak up and absorb as much as I could uh professionally, personally, socially um here in the Chicagoland area. um really really impactful for me to position the opportunity to be considered for the role that I'm in today.

(8:00) >> It's such good advice and good guidance of you see so many people think that the silly saying the grass is always greener or that to evolve you have to do something different and move on. There's great data around now how younger generations stay a job especially in certain industries for 12 to 18 months and then they move on to something else. And I'm sure there's merit to that growing skills and changing and developing. >> I'm going to hit 20 years in the same company this year. >> Yeah. >> Which one, >> I'm older than I than I ever realized all the time. But it did help me grow and evolve. And I think that it's really good guidance to reap what you sew in some ways. And like you said, if you have the ability to continue to evolve in those places, I think it's a really good opportunity to continue to grow and contribute to something really strongly because you put the time and tenure there.

(8:50) >> Exactly. Yeah. >> Your experience, you were three, you mentioned playing at the University of Iowa, you're a three-year starter, team captain. How did that experience at Iowa change how you think about leadership and mold how you think about leadership today? Yeah, I think the biggest takeaway for me from my time at Iowa was the the illustration that there's a lot of different ways to get to the the final inline, so to speak. And there's a lot of different leadership styles. There's a lot of different ways to encourage, to incentivize, to to find a common goal, to communicate with people. I mean the communication um technique style that works for this this guy may be completely different for another guy or group of guys. And so not understanding it at the time but inherently being exposed to it and seeing um you know starting with coach Fence all the way down through his staff that it was a it was a real intentional piece of of the program is how do you communicate with guys? How do you meet them where they are? How do you continue to advance the young person? Again, that's another piece that I was not fully and I probably still am not to this day, didn't fully comprehend. The program was as much about as developing the young person as it was the football player. And some of the core uh competencies that come along with successful athletes were being bred every day. consistency, accountability, diligence, work ethic, perseverance, resilience, all those things that we're all going to virtually everybody's athletic career comes to an end at some point. But being able to carry on those mantras, those traits and put them to work on a daily basis in one's personal life, professionally, personally, socially, um are things that again I didn't fully have exposure and didn't grasp it while going through it. Uh but I've had some interesting some some some, you know, moments I've really appreciated with coach Fence after the fact where I've thanked him. I've said, "Hey, thanks for those opportunities.

(11:00) thanks for clearly making that a a a meaningful, intentional, deliberate part of the program to develop young guys. And he said, "Yeah, you know," he said, "You don't need to thank me. I could probably, you know, return the the appreciation." He said, "But you're exactly right. Like, we're I'm in the the people development business just as much as I am the football business." Yeah, we want to win and we're going to compete to win and hopefully more often than not that we are winning. But um you know it was really just a nice illustration for me to to be able to to grasp that and continue to grasp that, digest it, internalize it, and continue to be, you know, really intentional with how I go about conducting myself and the the uh the mentality, the model that I that I carry forward representing myself, my family, the organization I work for, all the places I've been a part of in the past. And um it's not an accident for me, you know, I probably wasn't as intentional like a lot of people, you know, in my younger years with some of that, but um as I've been more exposed to things and realizing that not everybody has the same experiences, being really appreciative of the experiences that I did have and everybody has their own and um you know, just being able to hopefully be a resource myself for other people and and just really kind of tie that all together. the things that helped me in my career from the perspective in the chair that I sit in are the same things that helped me in my athletic career.

(12:28) And sure, my time at Iowa was hugely impactful there, but it goes even beyond that. It goes to some of my my um first real memorable moments as a as a youngster playing sports and having coaches that were not demanding were they were demanding but not overly so. They had expectations. there was clear communication of what those expectations were and especially as a young guy, a kid had no concept of what those traits were developing um in me that were, you know, foundational bedrock for being able to to carry that on into the next chapter and therefore thereafter and thereafter. So, um you know, there's it's not just my time at Iowa, my high school program, um played football, played basketball, ran track and youth sports before that. All of it has been hugely impactful in um you know being able to kind of set myself up and take those those traits, those characteristics I mentioned earlier and put them to use on a daily basis with how I roll my sleeves up and advocate for football here in the Big 10. It's so interesting how once you get some space from it, you see the things that you really take away from the experiences that you have and very different but you know I've had the same manager for almost 20 years and the way I do things sometimes I think oh I learned that from him.

(13:49) >> Yeah. >> And it's really interesting how they aren't explicit but it's cool how it ties back. You talk about that human development part and why you wanted to get into the education part into college sports and those things all really tie together in many ways at Iowa. Is it true that the visitors locker room is pink? >> It is pink. I can confirm. Uh I don't know what exactly what the uh panone shade is, but it is there is a there's a pink lock and it's everything. Ceiling, walls, carpeting, lockers, sinks, etc. It's pink. I love that because so much of sports in general, professional sports especially now, you go to these new stadiums which are big and beautiful and great, but they look like Las Vegas casinos in many ways and some of the character is gone. So, it's very cool to see that. And the the children's hospital wave thing is such a great tradition.

(14:37) >> Yeah, that wave is tough to beat. You know, it really puts into perspective. Um yeah, you want to win. Yeah. You want to compete and excel and nobody's signing up to hope it goes well. you want to put the time in to make sure it goes well. But when you see the struggle and the plight um particularly of young people, really young people, it in my mind uh illustrates what you know what what this is all about and the the great fortune that we have to be able to be in a place where we can go out and and play a game and do so in front of 75 80,000 people and shake hands at the end and dust ourselves off and learn from it, good or bad, and then go back and you know do it again. So um that hospital and the the intent to to highlight you know what those those um those folks are going through that are in the hospital. Nice reminder of just being able to appreciate the the things that we all go through on a daily basis.

(15:36) >> Absolutely. You had a career of all from Iowa. You played with multiple NFL organizations over six years. What did moving between those teams teach you about culture and governance and decision-making and leadership? Because you got to see so many different environments coming from a great college environment and then going into the NFL. I'm sure there were differences not only from a collegiate perspective to a professional, but then you got to see the different organizations and different structures. >> Yeah. You know, a couple things I would say really resonated and stuck out in my mind from a from a performance perspective. It became clear very quickly, you're only as good as your recent work. And uh if you if you're not able to produce at a certain level in the NFL, very quickly they will find someone that can. And even guys playing at the highest of levels, there's there's a plan B, C, and D uh behind him because at some point it'll be time to turn the page. And you're one rolled ankle away from turning that page. You might have a an extended plan, but that plan can be compressed pretty quickly based on the physicality of the game and just what goes into NFL football. I mean, it's as demanding as anything I can imagine physically um outside of maybe handtohand combat of some sort. So, that was that was made evident and I knew that going in, but really made evident quickly. The thing that I another component that I I think was illustrated pretty quickly up for me was just being able to rely on my own output, my own production, and being accountable for my own body of work. And what I've noticed was guys that have been at a place for a while, you have all that goodwill built up. You've got a relationship with the front office.

(17:24) You've got a relationship with the staff and you might have a little bit more leniency. There might be a little bit more of a leash there understandably and rightfully so. It's the trust has been built. It's like any relationship. If there's trust and accountability there, that means something and it's not easily and quickly dismissed. And a guy as a guy that was not in one place for an extended period of time, I had to reset that goodwill meter every time I went somewhere new. And that's not to suggest that I didn't know a single person in the building. And there were instances, I will say, where I didn't know anybody, but more often than not, I some people I recognized and and some some relationships I had from previous stops or or uh other other opportunities to engage with folks. But it was it was something that I I wasn't necessarily going to get the same benefit of the doubt as guys that were tenured at a certain place. And again, I I had no problem with that. I understood that. It was it's that's it's how it's how uh organizations high functioning organizations in most instances work is you got people that you can rely on and count on and they they answer the call.

(18:28) Those are folks that are are looked at to to be trusted when there's when there's an opportunity out there. So those two things I would say were probably the the most um uh most transparent to me as things unfolded. Um, you got to be a good player and you got to be able to go out and and do it under any circumstance because the odds are probably not going to be in your favor. They're probably, you know, it became evident that the front office probably has some pieces that they would like to see materialize in a certain way, be it for or against to ultimately whittle down to a 53 man roster. And regardless of which side of the coin I was on, I always tried to go out and put myself in a position, not unlike when I was a young guy as a freshman in high school trying to get on the varsity team or I was a freshman at Iowa trying to get in the two deep uh rotational lineup. Just be so productive, they can't afford to keep you off the field.

(19:30) And in the NFL, I had some I was appreciative of this. had some front office and some coaches tell me as training camp would be winding down, hey, it just might be tough to make this roster based on numbers, but every time you play in a preseason game, you're putting your resume on tape because you're a good enough player to play in this league. And half the half the deal with this league is staying healthy and being in the right place at the right time based on that particular roster's makeup. This is not college football where we got red shirts and guys that are going to be three-year projects.

(20:01) This is high production business right now. And if you've got a Pro Bowler and a firstrounder in two of the three spots, you know, you got six guys competing for that third one. Yeah, not everybody's going to have a chair when the music stops. So, um, you know, really appreciative for some of those moments along the way that, uh, further further exemplified for me that, um, you know, go out and put your name on something and be proud of the product and let the chips fall where they may. There's so many things that are such translatable skills from your sports into real life. You don't think about it from a preparation perspective. The hard skills is not teaching you engineering or how to code. But all of those soft skills, the leadership skills, the ability to face adversity, to work in teams, to be with different types of people. If you look back on that, what skills from your playing career translate now but that have surprised you, right? those leadership skills make sense and it's amazing to see people like yourself in such leadership roles but what are skills that you think oh I didn't think I'd use that but I actually do use that >> you know something that maybe opened my eyes as I transitioned into what I would say the corporate world I don't necessarily think of the big 10 as being overly corporate some people may disagree but um just the the willingness to to log long hours and long days and something that in my athletic career particular particularly in college playing playing football at Iowa that's a full-time job and I'm not suggesting it's just at Iowa everybody every every division one program and even beyond that FCS division 2 division 3 it's full-time job to play a a collegiate sport at the highest level when you consider practice film review strength and conditioning nutrition uh fueling the body the right way that's that's enough in and of itself combined with the academic undertaking and there's no there's not enough hours in the day sometimes to to get everything done at the level that um one may expect or or or hope for. So that was just inherently part of the success was long days, being able to stay focused in in all of those instances, being able to translate from the meeting room to the practice field, practice field to the game field, things that if you were going to be a player on the field, you were going to have to do those. It was just inherently understood that if you can't do that, you're probably not going to be in a position to play. And so that's just what I've known coming up um both as a student athlete and as a professional athlete and then getting into the workplace, willingness to really conduct myself in a similar way. Not everybody has that same developmental upbringing and not everybody has the same exposure to the expectation of long days and and uh being willing to do kind of whatever it takes. There's days that I'm not not every day is that way, but when there are days like that, um it's not as if at 5 six o'clock we're just going to punch the clock and head out. It's we're going to stay and work on this thing until it's resolved. It's sufficiently addressed. We can bookmark it for the time being and pick this up tomorrow or next week or next month. and being flexible, being dynamic enough to to to jump in and and be interested frankly in in uh seeing that work through until you know you get it to where it needs to be.

(23:28) So that was something that just eye opening. I don't know that I would how else I would necessarily characterize it. But um the other stuff I wouldn't say it was overly surprising that communication um teamwork, leadership, um engagement, empathy, those things that were hallmarks of good football teams that I was a part of and other sports in high school and before. Same thing in a team environment in the workplace of maybe at a different scale, maybe at a different velocity and and uh ferocity, but at a high level, same principles that got to get everybody on the same page. We need to communicate.

(24:10) We need to work with one another and understand how people digest information, put people in a position to succeed, no different than a coach puts players in a position to succeed, and then support one another. How are we going to how are we going to get this done? Whether it's we got an hour, a day or a month, we need to make sure that this is in a good place so that when we are working with membership or when we're advocating on behalf of membership um with our colleagues and counterparts maybe in different conferences or elsewhere, then we need to be buttoned up and and ready to go to make sure we're putting our best foot forward in each of those instances knowing that that's the expectation out of our office and that's what it should be. I think the message has always been important but extremely important now because as we get in a much more tech forward world and AI takes over more things doing a lot of deep research a lot of those soft skills become incredibly important because >> some of that work that was done from a grinding perspective isn't going to it's going to be offloaded in some ways and the ability to do all of these things that you've talked about the communication leadership the ability to be in a room with different types of people and communicate your message are going to become even more important because some of the other things can can get offloaded. So, it's it's a really good parlay from sports into that. So, if you look at, you know, for listeners, myself included, who don't completely understand the role, what does the day-to-day of football operations for the Big 10 actually look like in practice?

(25:43) >> So, it kind of depends on the day of the week. Um, what I share with folks is weeks resemble one another more than days do. Uh, one of the beauties of working in this building, Monday and Tuesday may be radically different, but over the course of a football season, let's say, Mondays generally look pretty similar. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, etc. Outside of the season, um, you know, it can kind of take on any form and and function as needed. But I think to help answer the question, this may help, this will hopefully help illustrate some things. At our core, the Big 10, the conference office, we are a membership organization. We exist to service our 18 institutional members and conduct the work and advocate and and produce in areas that they're just unable to on their own. And so some some of those mile markers being officiating assignments, scheduling, meteorites aggregation, and um revenue monetization, championship administration, postseason, whether it's a tournament or a game, things that our members are going to participate in, but it's on us to collect all their feedback and put on and execute all those events and operations, whether it truly is an or it's an operational component, schedule, officiating, media rights. Um, and then there's also ancillary uh components. Our compliance and policy staff, as one would think, never has a shortage of work they can be uh diving into as they help navigate um and and lead us in whatever the topic of the day may be. So, with that understanding, specifically in the football space, always keeping a close pulse on on where we are schedule-wise. We're actually prepared here in the next, I don't know, soon, very soon. The 2026 Big 10 football schedule will go out. So, on a yearly basis, annually, we put out the next year's schedule. So, even though we're going to wrap up 26 here soon, we'll take not too big of a break before we really start diving into 27 in concert with our media partners, in concert with institutional requests for consideration. And we're not going to be making any decisions here in the near term for the 27 football season, but we'll start sketching some things out.

(28:08) We'll start to draft some things. We've got a an opponent rotation. Um, so of the 12 conference ga, excuse me, 12 uh regular season games each Big 10 team plays in our conference, there's nine conference opponents that they'll play on an annual basis. So our opponent rotations, we've just concluded this being the third of a five-year cycle, excuse me, second of a fiveyear cycle of our opponent rotations. So we're staying on top of that. Is five years sufficient? Do we need to be evaluating that? how do those determinations get made so that in advance of that opponent rotation coming to an end? We're in a we're in a place to be able to message the membership um what we anticipate and ultimately seek their support and whatever decisions are going to be made moving into the future. So scheduling is always on our minds or right around the corner just barely over the horizon based on where we're at in the calendar year.

(29:04) Officiating is another one that very similarly uh football officiating for me during the season. It's right in front of us. But in the six or seven months, seven or eight months maybe that are not the football season, what are we doing to develop? What are we doing to attract talent? How are we retaining talent? How are we improving our program? How are we getting our people positioned in a way to do their best work on primarily Saturdays, but on game days during the fall? So, it's debrief the season we just concluded. It's a lot of clinic engagement. It's a lot of um uh deliberate getting together and and talking, discussing, evaluating um to make sure that we're taking the lessons from the previous season, debriefing it, preparing for the next season with plenty of time to to identify where we can holistically improve some things or maybe if it's not holistic, um uh individualized and and um a little bit more specifically what we can be doing in certain position groups, etc. ETA. So officiating is another one that's really on the radar, I would say, for the better part of the year. Uh, primarily postseason bull relationships, both in the CFP and nonCFP, primarily for me, the nonCFP space, working with our bull partners, working with our membership to educate them on opportunities that will be available in the upcoming season once the CFP field is determined. Um, this is probably pretty well understood for a lot of listeners. Right now, we're we we're in the midst of final the final game of the final season of the current CFP agreement. So there's a lot of curiosity and um uh enthusiasm behind what the future of the CFP will be and you know timelines for those types of decisions that Commissioner Patiti um is is I would say omnipresent on his radar to to make sure that the Big 10's positioned appropriately um for those postseason considerations into the future. And then it's and then that dubtales into any number of daily undertakings. And so a few examples, uh we just opened up, this is our second season with a uh pretty significant replay center project here in our building that uh with commissioner support down. We completely overhauled a space in our building and made it into our replay center. So any football game officiated by Big 10 officials, the determinations are coming from this replay center. Not unlike the way the NFL officiating anything and every review any reviews I should say are determined from our building. Much like the AMGC, the Art McN Game Day Center in the NFL is where their reviews are administered from. Same model with us. So oversaw that project and getting all the pieces in place technologically and operationally to make sure we're in a good spot. Similarly, we overhauled a command center um for our football to game day operations here >> [snorts] >> um over the last 12 months, which is where the commissioner, myself, our coordinator of officials, and others watch games on game day and pretty pretty sophisticated space there. So, those are oneoff outlier type projects um being able to work on. But shifting a bit, I also um happen to be on the NCAA rules committee currently. I'm getting into my third year of a fourth year term, four-year term. And so really staying on top of the look and feel and flavor of the rules of the game and are we in the right place? Are we teetering on needing to make a change? Are there any obvious instances where change is needed? And working in concert with the NCAA coordinator of football officials whose sole job is the rule book and education to to the coordinators of officials of the respective leagues.

(32:57) working with him, working with committee members to identify where to focus our efforts, ultimately informing those positions with membership feedback, coaches specifically. Um, from a playing perspective, if there are rules that live within the playing uh the rule book, but maybe are a bit more administrative in nature, working with our athletic directors and their respective delegates on where we need to be as a league. An example of that jersey patches on field sponsorship doesn't have much if anything to do with playing the game of football but certainly needs some pretty exhaustive intentional deliberate feedback from our administrators. So um just because something lives in the rulebook may not mean it's always going to go to the same group of people for feedback uh to be able to to jump into something.

(33:45) So that's a highle snapshot. Um, if we have this kind of the last thing I'll say just as we continue to effort to optimize the football calendar, which is going to be tricky to get everybody feeling like we got exactly 100% of what we need to nailed down for the college football calendar, meaning the transfer portal, what the fiscal year of revenue share looks like, what the postseason timeline looks like with the CFP, how do all of Those things layer into and on top of one another. That's ongoing work that the commissioner, myself, our compliance and policy staff, others in our building, we're we're always on trying to stay on top of feedback from our programs where we can be focusing and and putting our weight behind something to improve it, which may not be the topic of the day on a Wednesday, but you come in and maybe there's new information that has unfolded or become uh evident and apparent that may become the better part of the day's work is let's coales around an idea. Let's get some feedback. Let's position um whether it's verbally or otherwise to to make sure that we're we're representing where our our membership wants us to to you know put our efforts. So it's it's fun work. It's challenging work. It's demanding work. There's high expectations and as mentioned earlier, there should be. When I was at Iowa, I had no concept of what the Big 10 was.

(35:18) And really, frankly, until I started working here, I still didn't really even understand what conference work looked like then. And it took me a little bit of time once I started in the office in a different capacity to really start to um inherently understand what it is that the conference staff takes on. So, I'm fortunate in that I am able to focus the entirety of my work on Big 10 football. I don't necessarily need to ever bookmark it and and focus elsewhere and then come back to it. My job, the expectation of me and whether it's a a head coach, an athletic director, a counterpart of mine at one of the other conferences, a bowl director, uh NFL, we work closely with the league on any number of undertakings. never know when the phone's going to ring and the expectation is being on top of the information and being able to speak to it and inform why we are where we are and what a a road map may look like if we need to be somewhere else. So, um some days we're quiet, some days I can get uh some some project based stuff caught up and advanced. Other days barely get into the computer and the phone's ringing. That's where time is spent. So, um I enjoy it. as mentioned, it's it's it's demanding. Uh, but it's the type of work that I that I enjoy and it's not lost on me when I get to walk into the building and see our 18 logos, the the the magnitude of the work that we take on on a daily basis in the building here at the Big 10.

(36:46) >> For those of us that just get to sit and enjoy it on the weekends, like you said, there's so much that goes into it that we don't think about. It looks like such a welloiled machine on television or when all the content around it that you consume. It does seem like everything flows naturally, but there are people like yourself behind it grinding, doing a lot of things to keep that operation going. And I think it's really interesting to see the inner workings of that. And it's it's amazing what jobs there are and how they prop up this not only the institution of the Big 10, the conference itself, the membership, but also the institutions that are there as well. You know, if you look at college football, obviously you spend all your time in college football, like you said, which is has to be an amazing thing to be able to do, such an interesting part of life and been such a big part of your life, but it's undergone quite a bit of change even since you were there with realignment and the CFP that you talked about, NIL, athlete empowerment from a transfer perspective, from where you sit today, but also with your historical perspective, what's been the most challenging part to adjust boy. Um, you know what I've how I've tried to characterize to some folks whether they're in the industry or not, we took what was probably 50 or 75 years worth of opportunity to make some changes and have done it over the last 18 to 24 months. And any one of those single things on their own probably would have warranted a 3 to five year period of implementation, study, review, execution to really know how it's going before layering in other components. And when you have a sick patient and you start with 15 remedies, it's hard to know maybe which ones had which impacts and how they counteract one another or maybe they complement one another. But be that as it may, the reality is is we are where we are and we have to maximize the opportunity. And so you mentioned the the hot topics of um freedom of movement via the transfer portal. The advent of name, image, and likeness and the opportunity for student athletes to uh realize uh profitability.

(38:58) revenue share here most recently where athletic departments can spend a percentage of their revenues directly back with their student athletes. That's a capped model. Um but NIL's uncapped and so does that become a soft cap in some ways and how do you manage that to an effective point to where everybody's playing uh from a level playing field and the same starting point? the various components that import or impact the CFP and what's important in one league may not be as important in another, but something categorically different may be just as important in that league. And how do you weigh the decision matrix of all those things? Uh I mentioned the calendar. The calendar is something that really needs some deliberate effort and some work. There's going to need to be some concessions along the way because there is no one perfect thing for every program in college football to feel like they're getting exactly what they need. Indiana or Miami, one of them would be crowned a champion. There's a lot of teams whose last game was Thanksgiving weekend and they are in a very different place and they need to feel like they have every opportunity to get to where IU and Miami are at and everybody else in between those those those programs. So, it's tough. it's tough to to get everybody in a position where they feel like they're sufficiently able to pursue that opportunity for success. So, all of those things come in um hard to identify any single item, but it just again it illustrates the the magnitude of the work that we're undertaking here.

(40:36) Something that this was again news to me when I first started um and understandably is an unknown maybe for some people on the outside is the Big 10 does not have a vote. We we don't there we have 18 programs. There's no 19th vote. We go the way of membership and we what our job the way we look at it is to get them all the information they need, have additional information that they may not necessarily understand that they need, but as the conversations unfold, be able to give them all of the relevant uh resources to inform their position and ultimately craft a Big 10 position.

(41:13) And even doing that within our own league is difficult with 18 teams that are I mentioned IU and Miami. We got a team competing for a championship and we have teams that had coaching changes in the offseason because they weren't where they want to be competitively. And how do you how do you best operationalize um your own league within your own walls to get everybody in a position where they're feeling good about various topics and various perspectives? And there are some there's a handful that uh we can get uh consensus on which are great, but it's the ones that we don't necessarily have complete um agreement in and on that we typically spend more of our time to to see where and when appropriate to to make some concessions to to try to get the greater good accomplished or u at least identified.

(42:03) So, it it's a lot. There's a lot of things that um you know, head coaches and athletic directors have more on their plates than ever. I think they they they welcome that challenge. They embrace it. At the end of the day, it's still about the opportunity for young people to get coached, to develop physically, mentally, spiritually, and to go out and compete. And there's still a scoreboard. And as long as there's a scoreboard, we're going to compete for championships. we're not necessarily going to be apologetic about that and we're also going to strive to be at the top of the heap academically and again something that we're unapologetic about there and there's there's no reason why scholastically and athletically can't excel at the highest of levels um in both regards and we have plenty of examples of that on a daily basis which it's uh it's it's a privilege frankly to be able to work with people of this caliber and coaches of this caliber, administrators of this caliber, the commissioner um people that um I continue to feel like I'm in the right place because in most rooms I'm not the smartest guy. Very I'll put it this way.

(43:06) I'm never the smartest guy. In most rooms I'm toward the back of the line as far as um the the intelligence uh spectrum goes. So I'm able to learn and grow and absorb and soak up as much as I can on a daily basis, which still fuels me. um no shortage of fuel to to feel like I'm I'm in a place where I'm developing and being subjected and and exposed to things that um advance and help in my daily undertakings to to hopefully do my best work to all the same stuff we talked about earlier. Communicate, collect information, uh express ideas, exchange information collegially. We don't always have to agree, but doing so collegially is part of the deal. and you know just to be able to say Big 10 football is my opportunity 365 is pretty unique and not one that I take lightly. So yeah, it's all all those things and more.

(44:00) >> It's some of the best advice I ever received was if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room and the ability to evolve and learn from those people is a great opportunity. And you use that word opportunity over and over again when people talk about all the changes in college athletics, not just football, but athletics. There's often a gloom and doom talk to it. The get off my lawn guy of everything is changing. >> But if you look at it the other way, there's a ton of opportunity. There's a ton of opportunity for the student athletes, for the conferences, for the individual teams, for the sports as a whole. I think that if we look at them as opportunities and can harness those college athletics will continue to grow and evolve and be part of everyone's life and a huge part of everyone's life.

(44:41) And so I think looking at them as opportunities is a great way to look at it. There's a zillion things I could ask you. We could sit here and talk all day, but I'll get you out of here on this. When you think about the future of Big 10 football, what excites you the most? >> Yeah, I'm truthfully. I'm ecstatic about where we are as a conference, where our 18 members are. Um whether that's today or the opportunity in front of them to get where they want to go today, tomorrow, in the future weeks, months, and years because we we've got tremendous people on our campuses. Our coaches are outstanding.

(45:19) Our administrators are outstanding. They've got high expectations. It's not for everybody. And uh not everybody's going to stick and stay put. As mentioned earlier, like in the NFL, it's a production industry. It's a production business. And our people are competing at the highest of levels. And knowing that that is inherently where they are, intrinsically where they are, we're going to continue to push the envelope on success and doing so the right way, transparently, above board, and and and doing so uh equally amongst our counterparts and our peers. And as as I said, we're not going to be apologetic about that. And so that's what really enthuses me and energizes me is knowing that we're going to continue to push for a championship level competition. We're going to have young people, specifically in football, young men, go on and represent themselves, their families, their institutions. This conference at the highest of levels. whenever we have a chance to interact directly with young people like I I just keep in the back of my mind like this truly could be the next CEO, the next Fortune 500 founder, the next president of the country, you name it, the next the next Hall of Fame best player ever at his position, which there's been plenty of those come through the Big 10 over the years. So, it's it's a tremendous aggregation of championship level mentality. And that's hard not to get excited about.

(46:47) And if I ever get to a point where that feels like it's dull and dreary hoham, it's probably time for somebody else to be stepping into the opportunity that I'm in. So, um it's it's it's tremendous. And last thing I'll say on opportunity, just to listeners in general, opportunity doesn't guarantee a single thing. Nothing is guaranteed by preparation. However, if you're not prepared when that opportunity does come and you don't put your best foot forward, your best version of yourself, your best product forward, and that's the one chance you get, there's always going to be some reluctance, some doubt, and some second-guing on how that played out and how that thing may have been impacted differently had there been more preparation and more commitment to being ready when that when that opportunity opened and presented itself. That's something that was instilled in me at a young age. Coaches, parents, um teachers, educators, you don't know when that opportunity is coming, but you owe it to yourself to be as prepared as you can because you may only get one shot and based on how that one shot is dealt with can be and will be frankly impactful and what future opportunities may or may not come. So, something that I continue to carry with me and it's a nice reminder that uh you know there's only kind of like the NFL, you're only as good as your recent work and uh people people expect to see big stuff done and I like that. I like being held to that accountability.

(48:08) >> Absolutely. And when opportunity meets preparation, great things tend to happen. I mean, even as a Purdue graduate undergrad, I'm very excited about the state of Big 10 football. even you in the national championship game. It's a great time for Big 10 football, Big 10 sports in general. So, AJ, we cannot thank you enough for the time today. It's fascinating. There's so many ways we can go. We wish you the best of luck in all that you've done and we appreciate all that you've done from a conference level to continue to produce great football and and we look forward to that again next year. Thank you, Bryce. Really appreciate it. Uh my time at Northwestern, the MSA program was really in uh influential in being able to start my career at the Big 10, and there's still things I pull from that program. So, thank you for all that you do. Um, on behalf of the students that probably don't really get a chance to say thank you. Um, you know, if not for you and your counterparts in the program, there wouldn't be as many good uh prepared young people, not just young, but especially young people out there in the industry and just uh applaud you and encourage the good work to stay where it is and excel into the future because it's noticed and it's it's truly uh it is impactful. So, thank you.

(49:13) >> I appreciate that very much.