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61 By RICK KLATT I n 2016, football teams in the Big Ten Confer- ence will begin playing nine games against Big Ten opponents. e Southeastern Conference recently decided to stick with its plan of eight games against conference opponents. e Pac-12 is a nine-game league. e Atlantic Coast Confer- ence currently is an eight-game league, but could soon vote to move to nine. I think you see where I'm heading: the task for the selection committee of the shiny new College Football Playoff is filled with potholes like inconsistency across the "Power Conferences" in terms of the composition of their league schedules. None of the potholes are insur- mountable, but all contribute to the process to crowning a national champion a little more rocky. On the other hand, one of the many things that make college athletics unique is the fact that no two institutions are the same and that can be said of the conferences. Speaking of the new College Football Playoff, it makes me chuckle when we are months away from the first of what is to be 10 years of a four- team model and the drum for expansion to a field of eight continues to thump away as noted in this story by CBSSports.com: HERE. I guess we shouldn't be surprised. More is always better, right? On April 28 the UI Athletics Department an- nounced that seniors James Morris and Marike Stribos were the UI's 2014 recipients of the Big Ten Conference Medal of Honor. Talk about two young people who are a cut above. e resumes for each were long, very long. What stood out for me were their grade point averages and fields of study: Morris is a political science major with a 3.87 GPA. Stribos will graduate in May with a double major in finance and management, and with a 3.89 GPA. Talk about "Win. Graduate. Do it Right." ese two Hawkeyes nailed it. I saw where attendance at the Iowa football team's spring practice followed by scrimmage April 26 in- side a sun-drenched Kinnick Stadium ranked fih among its league peers. at total didn't include the 10,000 or so that gathered two weeks earlier at Valley Stadium in West Des Moines. My take on this is straightforward: Fans of the Hawkeyes are always enthusiastic about their team and are even more so about the 2014 squad. ere are no guar- antees, but it looks like head coach Kirk Ferentz and his staff have the potential to put a very com- petitive unit on the field next fall. Mother Nature has wreaked havoc on the sched- ules for our spring sports, but how about the work of Rick Heller's baseball team to overcome those hurdles? As of this writing, 25 wins in the books with three series against Big Ten Conference opponents and a berth in the league's postsea- son tournament still out there to grab. Not a bad first year for Heller, his staff, and the Hawkeyes. You can read more about the baseball Hawkeyes HERE. Lastly, our men's golf team is heading to French Lick, Ind. It will be fun to see if Mark Hankins' squad can keep the momentum it has built dur- ing the last four or five weeks. You can read more about Hankins' squad HERE. Random Thoughts