According to CBSsports.com’s Bruce Feldman, Kansas University’s football team will have to tackle the fifth-toughest schedule in the country during head coach Charlie Weis’ first season in charge.

Feldman, who covers college football and basketball nationally for the site, ranks the Jayhawks’ schedule behind Notre Dame, Washington, Oregon State and Michigan.

KU is one of two Big 12 teams on Feldman’s Top 10 list — Iowa State comes in at No. 8 — and the Jayhawks’ high ranking seems to come from their doormat status in the always-tough Big 12 Conference.

Of KU’s 2012 schedule, Feldman wrote: “Charlie Weis inherits a two-win team and a schedule that, after the first two weeks, features 10 consecutive solid opponents that include a trip to face an underrated (Northern Illinois) team, at K-State, at OU, at Texas Tech and a finish in Morgantown (W.V.). It also makes things seem more ominous for a team when you’re the only real hapless program in a league where everyone else is dangerous as the Big 12. Just ask OU and Oklahoma State, who each were knocked off by Texas Tech and Iowa State last year. And then by adding in TCU and WVU, things only got rougher in the Big 12.”

KU opens the season with back-to-back home games against South Dakota State (Sept. 1) and Rice (Sept. 8).

The Jayhawks even earned a mention in Feldman’s comments about Iowa State’s tough schedule.

“Aside from Kansas, which is sandwiched in between late games at Texas and against WVU, no other Big 12 team seems like it won’t be a bowl contender in the league,” Feldman wrote.

All 10 programs on Feldman’s list are from BCS conferences.

Big 12 meetings begin

What two years ago was a hotbed for activity concerning the Big 12 Conference’s attempt at survival figures to be a much more quiet and pleasant place this time around.

The Big 12’s annual spring meetings, which run today through Friday in Kansas City, Mo., will cover a variety of topics from conference expansion and realignment to more talk about the league’s football television deal and the future site of a handful of Big 12 championships. While all of those figure to produce some interesting reactions, none will match the intensity and desperation that surrounded the 2010 meetings, which still included all of the original members of the Big 12.

This year’s meetings, attended by athletic directors, presidents, chancellors and faculty representatives, will include TCU and West Virginia for the first time. Newly named Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, who officially takes over beginning June 15, also will be in attendance.

O-lineman wins shot put

Class of 2012 signee Brian Beckmann, an offensive lineman from Blue Valley West High, won the Class 6A shot put championship at last weekend’s state meet in Wichita. Beckmann’s put of 55 feet, 7.75 inches topped the field by nearly two feet.

Beckmann, 6-foot-6, 280 pounds, also took fourth in the discus with a throw of 158 feet.