Big Ten links: Football schedules, Big Ten hoops coaches extended & more

The Big Ten had spring meetings last week, where a number of topics were discussed. One looked at more balance in future football schedules.

Scott Dochterman of the Cedar Rapids Gazette says the athletics directors? discussion highlighted the Big Ten?s challenges of scheduling with a larger conference and an odd number of games.

?Just make sure we?re applying a common set of standards and maintain things like home-and-away balance and east-west balance and marquee matchups and that sort of thing,? Indiana Athletics Director Fred Glass said. ?I think the scheduling guys do a great job. We have to help give them principles to follow and make a schedule that?s a competitively balanced in a system that?s inherently non-competitively balanced because you don?t play everybody.?

The league has no plans to expand to a 10-game conference schedule in the future, Purdue A.D. Morgan Burke said.

?I think we?re kind of dead on that,? he said.

But conference foes as non-conference foes? Maybe.

With FCS opponents deemed off limits to Big Ten teams and with other non-conference opponents becoming harder to secure logistically and monetarily, Wisconsin A.D. Barry Alvarez sees the Big Ten as potential scheduling inventory.

?I think that should be an option,? Alvarez told Madison.com. ?I think it will.?

***

A hot topic at SEC spring meetings: satellite camps. Please, tell me you aren?t surprised.

?We prefer our current legislation,? Commissioner Mike Slive said in an interview with The Associated Press. ?It gets complex when that legislation is not national legislation, so we would like to see our rule become national legislation. The real question is if it doesn?t, what are we going to do? That?ll be basically one of the primary subjects. I don?t have an answer, but we hope an answer will emerge out of Destin."

***

Remember Michigan RB Justice Hayes? He is transferring to Southern Miss for his fifth season.

Mlive.com notes that Hayes concluded his Michigan career with 302 rushing yards and one touchdown on 68 carries. He primarily served as the team's third down back in 2014 and would have been a member of a crowded 2015 backfield featuring Derrick Green, Ty Isaac, Drake Johnson and De'Veon Smith.

***

And Wolverine CB Blake Countess is headed for Auburn.

***

Interesting take from Lee Hudnell, who is on the defensive after writing recently that Penn State?s Christian Hackenberg is far from being a top NFL pick.

Even the most ardent Nittany Lions fan has to agree that Hudnell makes some good arguments.

***

Good video here from Keith Sargeant of NJ.com on Rutgers A.D. Julie Hermann?s discussion of the Scarlet Knights? first year in the Big Ten.

***

Good news for Northwestern, as Chris Collins has inked an extension-according to Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune.

Collins went 14-19 in his first season and improved to 15-17 last year after the Wildcats went 5-2 down the stretch in Big Ten play. His third team, stocked with veterans Alex Olah and Tre Demps and talented sophomores such as Vic Law and Bryant McIntosh, will be expected to make a strong push for the school?s first NCAA tournament bid.

***

Nebraska hoops coach Tim Miles also has been extended.

***

Excitement already is building in West Lafayette over the addition of five-star stud Caleb Swanigan, who is slotted to play power forward next to A.J. Hammons. It could be quite a duo. Gold & Black Illustrated has some nice audio from Boilermaker coach Matt Painter discussing how he?ll use the school?s most heralded recruit since landing Mike Robinson in 1996.

***

And if you want to leave a comment on this post, use the box below. All comments need to be approved by a moderator.