Big Ten on a roll at spring meetings, trying to solve playoff stalemate and other college problems

“It seems like we’re paddling beneath the surface and we don’t really know what direction we’re going in,” said coach Dusty May, whose Michigan men’s basketball team won the championship a mere six weeks ago. “There’s no easy solution to this. There’s no logical solution.

There’s going to have to be some give and take. ” A few big-ticket items have, in fact, been resolved over the past month: --The NCAA expanded March Madness from 68 to 76 teams and opened a new $300 million revenue stream to fund it through beer and wine sponsorships. --The College Sports Commission won the first big arbitration case in a test of its authority to enforce rules governing name-image-likeness payments to athletes that are now the norm – and are putting college sports programs in financial jeopardy.

Even those issues, however, aren’t fully resolved (For example, will the arbitration decision involving Nebraska football players lead to a lawsuit? ) and they only scratch the surface of what's yet to be hashed out. Whatever conclusions the Big Ten comes to this week will only be one piece of the puzzle.

The SEC gathers next week in meetings that will direct their own league’s business with a view of the wider picture in mind. Big Ten's idea for a bigger College Football Playoff gains support The size of the College Football Playoff seems to be the most digestible of the thus-far intractable standoffs, but still, there’s no resolution on the horizon. In this, the Big Ten also seems to have taken a step forward.