Meaty Big Ten news day: Bowls, schedules

I'm going to quit complaining about April through August being the Dead Zone when it comes to writing about college sports.

There no longer is such a thing. The NFL and college athletics have figured out you can stay in the news every day if you parcel the material out, and if you stage events. In recent years, the Big Ten's spring meetings in Chicago have become a media attraction. It helps that Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez seems to have taken it upon himself to be the league's middleman to the media, and drops factoids upon them.

Such as: The Big Ten football schedule for 2014 with Maryland and Rutgers included will be released Wednesday (League senior associate commissioner Mark Rudner told me today it might be Thursday).

And, it's looking like the league will be affiliated with the Pinstripe and Holiday bowls starting in 2014.

And, the league's ban on playing football games against FCS teams may be on hold.

None of those items will open ESPN's SportsCenter tonight. But they're good little morsels for Big Ten fans in mid-May.

My TheGazette.com colleagues, Scott Dochterman and Marc Morehouse, are in Chitown for the meetings. Check their blogs for stories like these:

Scott tweeted this morning that Iowa's single-game opponents in Big Ten men's basketball next season are Indiana, Nebraska, Penn State and Purdue. Last season, they were Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan and Illinois.

You can connect the dots pretty easily. Next season's Hawkeyes schedule is harder. Which is good. No talk about strength-of-schedule. Go 9-9 (or better) in the conference next season, and Iowa is going to the NCAA tournament. Period.

I, for one, felt deprived not getting the chance to cover Michigan or Ohio State in Iowa City last season. And who knows if Iowa could have bulled its way into the NCAAs if it had had the chance to beat those two at home? But there won't be any what-ifs next season. Iowa is playing the big boys twice. I don't count Indiana among those based on pre-preseason forecasts. To me, the top three opponents for Iowa in terms of strength are Michigan State, Ohio State and Michigan, and you can never put Wisconsin very far down the list.

Toss in Notre Dame, a game at Iowa State, and the possibilities of playing Kansas and/or Xavier in the Bahamas, and you've got a schedule. Glad to see it.

Bouncing back to the bowls, I'm on record here as being strongly in favor of the Big Ten adding the Pinstripe and Holiday bowls. It should have one more West Coast bowl presence besides the Rose, and may not have a team in the Rose in years that game has a Football College Playoff semifinal. As for the Pinstripe, if you're going to have an Eastern presence, have an Eastern presence. Besides, I love New York.

The Holiday will rank high on the Big Ten's list.

The Big 12, meanwhile, will apparently lose the Holiday Bowl, which had fallen on its pecking order in recent years. It looks like the league will bump up the Alamo Bowl's status and perhaps hook up with the Russell Athletic Bowl (formerly the Champs Sports Bowl, formerly the Tangerine Bowl, formerly the MicronPC Bowl, formerly the CarQuest Bowl, formerly the Blockbuster Bowl) in Orlando.

Also, the big fan-following Iowa State brought to last New Year's Eve's Liberty Bowl has opened eyes in Big 12 country and in Memphis, so the conference and the bowl may enter a marriage sometime soon.

I enjoyed Michigan football coach Brady Hoke saying Monday that Notre Dame "chickened out" of playing games against the Wolverines in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Yeah, because Notre Dame doesn't schedule anyone who's any good. Just Oklahoma, Texas, Michigan State, Stanford, USC, Miami ...

Michigan hasn't won a Big Ten football title since 2004, when it shared the league crown with Iowa. Get yourself back to national prominence -- as it's expected you will under Hoke -- and then you can talk.

Besides playing Notre Dame this season, Michigan is playing Central Michigan and Akron at home and Connecticut on the road. The following season, the Wolverines host Appalachian State, Miami (OH) and Utah. I'd say that's a bit on the "chicken" side, but it isn't. Michigan lost the last times it played Appalachian State and Utah.

Wisconsin may have set a dangerous precedent. It was announced Monday that the Badgers will play St. John's in men's basketball on Nov. 8. In Sioux Falls, S.D.

It will be a home game for the Badgers. Former UW player Joe Krabbenhoft is the team's video coordinator.

The game will help christen a $19 million arena in Sioux Falls.

Let's not have this leading to, say, Iowa playing Seton Hall in Fargo, N.D., or Bangor, Maine.

Should the Hawkeyes like to move a game to the

Cedar Rapids Convention Center, however, it would be a magnificent gesture.