AT&T Cotton Bowl to host first playoff title game

[JonLP24]

MIAMI -- The Rose and Sugar bowls will host college football's first national semifinals on Jan. 1, 2015, with the AT&T Cotton Bowl a "prohibitive favorite" to host the national title game on Jan. 12, 2015, sources said Monday.

Under the 12-year deal, which begins after the 2014 season, the Rose Bowl Game presented by Vizio and Allstate Sugar Bowl will be played on Jan. 1 every season, whether they are hosting the national semifinals or not.

During the 12-year contract, the Rose and Sugar will host the semifinals four times. In the years they aren't hosting, the national semifinals would be moved from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, sources said.

The only exceptions would be on Sunday, Jan. 1, 2017 and Jan. 1, 2023, when the Rose and Sugar would move to Dec. 31, 2016 and Dec. 31, 2022, respectively. If the Rose and Sugar don't host the semifinals in those two seasons, the national semifinals would be played on Dec. 30, 2016 and Dec. 30, 2022. Six bowls, also to include the Orange, will rotate as hosts for the national semifinals. The other three have not been officially determined. Sources told ESPN they would be the Cotton, Tostitos Fiesta and Chick-fil-A bowls.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/bowls12/story/_/id/8821288/att-cotton-bowl-host-first-playoff-title-game-sources-said

The biggest thing that is holding me back from enjoying this is that a selection committee will decide the 4 teams.

[Scurrilous]

1. Not too confusing...

[d_r]

2. four teams is better than 2

but a lot worse than 8.

I've always thought they should have 8 conference champions and let the champion of each conference play in tournament. You want to go to tournament, win your conference. No picking and voting.

[Carnage251]

4. Conference champs only would be the worst possible format

[d_r]

5. if you can't win your conference

you shouldn't play for MNC. I don't care who thinks the #2-3-4 teams in a given conference are better than the #1 team in another conference. Teams play 3-4 out of conference games a year, the ability to rank across conferences is mostly guess work, and each conference having an equal shot at the tournament would result in more parity between conferences rather than 2-3 super conferences and a lot of whipping posts. It would mean that every game of the season is important, the whole season is basically a tournament for the tournament.

[Carnage251]

7. It would only make conference games important

because out of conference games have no barring on who is conference champs.

The regular season is already a tournament, look at Kansas State or Oregon and at one point Alabama.

[d_r]

8. out of conf wins wouldn't

Help but ooc loses wouldn't hurt. So there would be no incentive to scheduling whipping posts and $ incentive for quality home and homes.

[JonLP24]

9. I wouldn't support that

because most of the major conferences uses a conference championship game (that often doesn't feature the 2 best teams in conference) as a way of determining a conference champion which isn't the best way of determining who the best team is.

You often see teams w/ 3-4 conference losses as "conference champions" even though the team they defeated only has 1 or 2 conference records. It would be tough for me to support a system w/ 8-4 teams in an exclusive playoff when there are usually around 8 1 or 2 loss teams overall.

[madinmaryland]

3. I guess we know where El Supremo will be on Jan. 12, 2015!! The House Jerrah Built!!

[El Supremo]

6. You can be sure THE Ohio State won't be there.

They'll have some other bowl sanction.