Nebraska & Penn St. still Nebraska & Penn St.

College football, believe it or not, isn't just an SEC thing. But I gotta tell ya ...

I was on assignment near the Georgia-South Carolina border for several days last week, covering a golf tournament. It was the week of the spring football games of Georgia, South Carolina and Clemson. The latter is an ACC institution, by the way, but it's SEC-quality in football like fellow ACC teams Florida State and Miami. Sometimes Miami, that is.

On the same day, Georgia had 46,073 fans for its spring game, South Carolina had 36,412, and Clemson had 33,000.

That was on the same afternoon as the Masters was going on, and there was a NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Darlington, S.C., that night that drew about 65,000 fans.

So they take spring football kind of seriously in the Southeast. Tennesse had a spring-game crowd of 68,548. Florida had 35,834. Alabama and Auburn will send the turnstiles spinning when they have their spring soirees.

But the Big Ten has three bastions of spring football love. Penn State had 72,000 for its game last Saturday. Ohio State. Nebraska had 61,772 and Ohio State 61,058.

You can talk about who's who and what's what. Iowa whipped Nebraska last November and went to a better bowl in the Big Ten's pecking order than the Huskers. Penn State is still serving out NCAA sanctions that include a bowl ban.

But then you saw the ABC/ESPN prime-time slate of games that has been announced for this fall. Ohio State has two appearances, of course. Nebraska and Penn State also have two appearances. They're still Nebraska and Penn State, marquee college football programs for the last half-century.

Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State and Wisconsin are up once in the seven prime-time games that were announced. Iowa? Not at all, along with Indiana, Maryland, Northwestern, Purdue and Rutgers.

It's possible the Nov. 22 Wisconsin-Iowa game could be added to the ABC/ESPN prime-time schedule, but both would probably need to be in the Big Ten West title-chase for that to happen.

By the way, seven Big Ten teams held spring games/open spring practices last weekend that didn't draw as many as 10,000 fans. New league member Maryland had 8,319 on a rainy Friday night. Michigan had just 15,000, earning the ridicule of Ohio State, but Michigan has never made much of a production out of its spring exhibition.

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It's another April, and another depleted Big Ten men's basketball talent pool.

Eight of the 15 players named on the coaches' all-conference teams are leaving the league, and four are seniors. The others are Indiana freshman Noah Vonleh, Michigan State sophomore Gary Harris, Michigan soph Nik Stauskas and Ohio State junior LaQuinton Ross.

That quartet, along with Michigan sophomore Glenn Robinson III, are NBA early-entries.

Maryland and Rutgers will bring in 26 scholarship players to the conference next year, but they won't make up for the five players departing early.

Voids often get filled. Illinois will be a much-improved team next season. Minnesota could be formidable.

Mitch McGary will return from back surgery to join a pair of skilled guards at Michigan in Caris LeVert and Derrick Walton Jr. Wisconsin could be a dynamo with everyone of note back except Ben Brust. Michigan State never sleeps, and won't with Brenden Dawson and Denzel Valentine leading the way.

And I maintain Iowa will be better next season than in the one just ended, but that's filler for a long offseason.

When this season began, the idea of Robinson and Harris bolting after this season seemed logical. But Stauskas was a supernova. Vonleh is a big guy with skills, and players like that aren't destined to stay in college basketball for four years.

I hope Ross isn't following the lead of fellow former Buckeye Deshaun Thomas, who left OSU after his junior year last season and never played a minute in the NBA this season. Although, he did get paid to play in France, which has its charms.

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Iowa and Iowa State understand it's hard to build solely with high school recruits and compete at the highest level of college basketball.

Iowa signed a junior college guard, Trey Dickerson, and is in hot pursuit of juco Willie Atwood. Atwood is a 6-foot-8 forward from Connors State in Oklahoma. He averaged 20 points and nine rebounds this season. If he could give the Hawkeyes half of that next season, it would be huge.

Iowa State has found it's a lot more fun to go to NCAA tournaments with rent-a-players than to be without them and stay home.

Goodbye, DeAndre Kane, hello Bryce Dejean-Jones. How good is it to slide in a senior who was the leading scorer at UNLV last season?

Dejean-Jones is expected to qualify to play next season under the graduate transfer rule, which seniors can do if they have a season of athletic eligibility left. That's what Will Clyburn did at ISU, that's what Kane did.

Dejean-Jones had a late-season suspension with the Runnin' Rebels for 'violation of team rules.' Royce White, Korie Lucious and Kane came to Fred Hoiberg with baggage, too. What they get for a recruiting pitch is along the lines of 'This kind of basketball will showcase your skills and get you into pro basketball if you toe the line and be a good teammate. This is your last shot, and this would the best platform you've ever had.'

Boston College forward Ryan Anderson is a junior who is transferring. He will visit Indiana, Iowa State and Arizona early next month. Anderson averaged 14.3 points and 7.3 rebounds last year. He had shoulder surgery Tuesday and will sit out the coming season.

Iowa State also got a commitment from Iowa Western Community College's 6-8 Darien Williams, who also will have shoulder surgery in the offseason, will take a redshirt year, then will be eligible for three years at ISU.

The transfer game is unseemly when it's your player leaving. When it's someone coming in to help, it's a lot more palatable.

Next season, though, the Cyclones will be known for forward Georges Niang and point guard Monte Morris more than perhaps any of their teammates. They both came to ISU as high school recruits.

Iowa, Iowa State and veteran-laden Northern Iowa could be as good a triumverate next season as our state has seen in a long time. If we can avoid more of those blasted polar vortexes, next winter could actually be enjoyable in these parts.