Big 10 (or 14, or 16)
Expansion wasn't on the official agenda for the spring meetings, but it's certainly the biggest topic of discussion. The conference is about five months into an expansion study to help determine the scope of a move many view as inevitable.

"A lot of these things that we've studied have been, in my view, improperly studied [by other leagues]," Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said at the meetings. "Didn't understand the logistics, didn't understand the culture, didn't understand the academic fit, didn't really understand whether they were doing a merger or whether they were doing an expansion. Expansion is very difficult, and we're learning how to do it better, I think."

A lot of factors will go into who the conference decides to add, such as academic considerations and a population shift to the South, but one of the most widely held beliefs is that the Big Ten wants to land a big school, namely, Notre Dame and/or Texas.

Ohio State University Athletic Director and Notre Dame alum Gene Smith shared some mixed feelings about the Irish and the changing world of college football.

"I've just got to believe that a Notre Dame football player winning a conference championship and having that conference ring, is a memorable experience," Smith told ESPN.com. "And then, chasing a national championship. You can do both, but when you only have one, I struggle with that.

"Now back in the day when I was playing, different deal. The landscape was different. You didn't have the BCS, you didn't have the bowl alliance. Notre Dame could dominate. When I coached there, we selected, we didn't recruit. It's a different time space."

Anxious in the East
The Big East is patiently waiting to see what the Big Ten decides and where the dominoes fall. Several Big East schools, such as Syracuse and Rutgers, have been discussed as possibly leaving. Commissioner John Marinatto has been hesitant to talk about expansion, but that doesn't mean he's not thinking about it.

"Oh yeah, we've been working quietly, trying not to put things in the public arena and public forum for a variety of reasons," he told Fanhouse.com. "It leads to unnecessary speculation. You want to do things intelligently and the more you can keep things confidential, ultimately the better you are."

Marinatto said the league purposely added revisions in the league's constitution so the Big East could expand "if it was in the collective best interest to do that or it if was in the interest of our football group to do that."

The conference's television contracts with ESPN/ABC and CBS expire after the 2012-13 season, and Marinatto said the idea of creating a Big East network was on the table.

Television Talk
Expansion was mentioned at the ACC meetings, but the new television deal was the headline. Commissioner John Swofford would not discuss the final details, but ESPN reportedly outbid Fox Sports with a 12-year, $1.86 billion deal to broadcast football and men's basketball starting in the 2011-12 season.

On the Table
While the Big 12 meetings don't begin until next month, Texas is still making headlines. Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds has said that 'Nothing's off the table,' including going independent in football.

"We've had those conversations. We've thought about it. It's a possibility, but it's not something we're thinking about seriously," Dodds told USA Today. "You could do it in football. It hurts basketball badly unless you find a conference. It's got lots of flaws."

Team Building
At the Conference USA meetings, much attention was paid to improving its basketball teams' RPIs after watching the University of Texas El-Paso barely reach the NCAA tournament after going 15-1 in the conference. Beefing up non-conference schedules to improve RPI was one topic of conversation.

"We want to see our teams regularly ranked in the top 25," Commissioner Britton Banowsky told The Commercial Appeal. "We want to see teams do what Memphis did and make deep runs in the tournament, and we want to see the strength top to bottom.

"To the extent we haven't done that, it clearly is unrealized potential, but I'm encouraged by some of our coaching hires and facilities that are being developed, so it's a goal that is achievable."

Kyle Garratt is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management. He can be reached at kg@momentummedia.com.