Who is ready for some meetings? Not that exciting, right? But in this post-spring ball desert known as the offseason, anything football related works and there will probably be a few football-related pieces to emerge from the Big Ten’s annual athletic director skull session this week.
The Detroit News and Lafayette Journal & Courier offered quick previews of what to expect from these meetings.
There will definitely be talk of the NCAA’s recent football recruiting reform and how it impacts the Big Ten, but the biggest forward-facing news could involve scheduling.
From the Journal & Courier:
Since the league announced conference schedules through 2019, the Big Ten has a handful of new athletic directors. [Purdue AD Mike] Bobinski said most of the new athletic directors are curious how the league arrived at its scheduling model.
Despite taking over in September, Bobinski understands the process, thanks to former athletic director Morgan Burke explaining the background. But how those schedules look is important.
AD’s are starting to schedule non-conference games into the next decade and each team’s crossover games dictate the difficulty of the three non-league games teams play each season.
“We’re all booking games past ’19 and you want to know what the rest of your schedule looks like so you can be intelligent,” Bobinski said. “If we have Michigan and Ohio State in the same year, I’m not sure I want to add Texas and Alabama in the non-conference or something like that.”
The SEC has its conference schedules set through 2025. The ACC (and Notre Dame) recently revealed its rotation through 2037, so it seems like the Big Ten is probably due for an announcement.
There could also be some basketball scheduling talk as some ADs, Purdue’s included, are in favor of protecting rivalry games. Not sure how that would affect Nebraska (lock in Iowa, I guess?), but we’ll see what happens.
Magic
Did you see the catch Mojo Hagge made on Sunday to secure the series win for Nebraska and keep the Huskers in first place in the Big Ten?
https://twitter.com/Husker_Baseball/status/863852297360637952
Mike Babcock has your story from yesterday’s 8-7 win here.
The Grab Bag
- Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated looks at cable TV and the college sports bubble. Penn State AD Sandy Barbour, however, says she expects media rights deals to “flatten off” but not go down.
- Nebraka basketball’s transfer numbers can stack up with most schools, but Maine — poor, beautiful Maine — has had 11 players leave in the last two years.
- New Minnesota AD Mark Coyle earns a back pat for navigating a first year filled with tumult.
- Tanner Lee checks in at No. 6 in this ranking of Big Ten quarterbacks.
Today’s Song of Today
https://youtu.be/OLmXLzu0_6w
