Three thoughts after reading the huge Sportico/Big Ten/Kevin Warren story, plus other updates:

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.

Thanks for your patience, everybody. I'm finally back from a family vacation. I highly recommend spending time in the great outdoors of Southern Illinois. It was lovely, and I'm sure it would have been even more lovely if it didn't rain every single day. Perhaps next time.

I haven't had a chance to catch up on everything over the last few days, but I have a few things to share with you.

1) I will appear on Illinois Public Media's 'The 21st Show' tomorrow at 11:00 God's Time Zone, Noon Eastern. We'll be discussing what Big Ten expansion means for athletes, institutions ,and consumers, among likely other big college sports topics.

2) I am constantly updating my tracker of all the submitted team audio and gameday assets for next year's EA Sports College Football. Since I got a few FOIAs over the weekend, I'm updating assets from Utah State, UNLV and Minnesota. Bookmark this newsletter if you're interested in additional updates, and if you'd like to share what your school has done to prepare for the game, drop me a line at [email protected].

Now, the one big story I did get a chance to read while on vacation came from Sportico. Former Extra Point-er Daniel Libit, along with multiple Sportico colleagues, published a massive deep-dive on all sorts of behind-the-scenes challenges that the Warren administration faced over the last two years...from the COVID political football, to the alienation of multiple athletic directors, to the struggles in recruiting and retaining staff, and more.

If you're interested in some real inside baseball stuff, which you probably are, since you read Extra Points and all, I think the story is worth making some time for.

After taking a day or two to digest everything, here were a few of my biggest takeaways and follow-up questions:

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