College Confidential

Drama building with OU in danger of losing BCS berth to N. Illinois, which would create major shuffling of bowl matchups

The voters in the coaches poll have spoken. But what they have said by placing Northern Illinios at No. 16 in today’s poll that will be used in compiling the final BCS standings remains open for discussion.
And the final word will not become public until tonight’s release of the final BCS standings (7:30 p.m., ESPN).

The bottom line is that Oklahoma (10-2) would be bumped from an at-large BCS bowl berth if Northern Illinois (12-1), the MAC champ, finishes 16th or higher in the final BCS standings. If that happens, the Sooners _ who envisioned playing Florida (11-1) in the Sugar Bowl on Saturday night _ would wind up in the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic in Arlington, with an anticipated matchup against LSU (10-2) or Texas A&M (10-2).

The situation is fluid and two BCS analysts, CBS’ Jerry Palm and ESPN’s Brad Edwards, have switched their bowl projections today. Both took Oklahoma out of the BCS mix in favor of Northern Illinois (12-1). But both cautioned that the margin will be razor thin. The Huskies will climb in the computer rankings based on their victory over Kent State (11-2) in the MAC title game. But the impact of voters in the coaches poll and the Harris poll figure to be crucial.

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops did his part to help his team, voting the Sooners at No. 6 and Northern Illinois at No. 24 in today’s final coaches poll. The ballots of voters were released on the USA Today website. Northern Illinois coach Dave Doeren voted Oklahoma 11^th and his team at No. 14.

If Oklahoma does not wind up in the Sugar Bowl, the omission would cost the Big 12 a $6.2 million windfall and would create a reshuffling of the league’s bowl slots. It would sent Texas to the Alamo Bowl to meet a Pac-12 foe (likely Oregon State), with lots of guessing on bowl placements after that. The Big 12 also would need to find a spot for one of its bowl-eligible teams (likely Iowa State) in a game that is not contractually tied to the Big 12.

The SEC slots are being solidified, with Georgia expected to play Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl. That means A&M’s likely bowl destination will either be the Cotton Bowl against OU or the Chick-fil-A Bowl (in Atlanta) against Clemson.

Nothing, as this juncture, has been announced by the SEC in terms of bowl berths. But officials at the Capital One Bowl have announced Nebraska as the Big Ten representative in that contest.

Other Big 12 coaches joined Stoops in voting up the Sooners and voting down Northern Illinois. Baylor coach Art Briles placed Oklahoma at No. 6 and Northern Illinois at No. 19 on his ballot. West Virginia’s Dana Holgorsen had OU at No. 9, with Northern Illinois at No. 24. The ballot of Texas Tech coach Tommy Tuberville mirrored where both teams finished in today’s coaches’ poll: OU at No. 11 and Northern Illinois at No. 16.

Kent State coach Darrell Hazel, whose team lost to Northern Illinios in the MAC title game, voted Oklahoma at No. 11 and Northern Illinois at No. 17 on his ballot.

_ Jimmy Burch

 

First national title game site of college football playoff era could be decided by Jan. 1; Cotton Bowl in mix

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said Monday that administrators shaping the future of college football’s post-season during the playoff era hope to lock in the location of the national championship game following the 2014 season by Jan. 1. Cowboys Stadium in Arlington is among the leading venues to host the contest and Bowlsby said he expects the game to be played within the Big 12’s geographic footprint “on occasion.”

Bids are expected to be placed within the next 60 days and Tommy Bain, chairman of the Cotton Bowl Athletic Association, said he plans to meet Tuesday with Cowboys’ officials for further discussions.

“We anticipate us being one of the finalists,” Bain said, referring to the venues seeking to host the inaugural national title game of the playoff era. “At this point, we’re confident we’ll host a national championship game. It’s just a matter of when.”

Bowlsby indicated commissioners are anxious to set the site for the 2014 title game “so somebody can get started” preparing for it and promoting it. He said he would be “disappointed” if a site had not been selected by Jan. 1.

Bain said the availability of all suites in Cowboys Stadium could be an asset in the bidding process. Bain said individuals who paid personal seat licenses for their suites in the stadium did so with the knowledge that they would not have access to those suites in two instances: a Super Bowl or a national championship game in college football. Instead, those suite holders would have the option of taking tickets elsewhere in the facility.

In addition, Cotton Bowl president Rick Baker said administrators will be active in trying to land the Champions Bowl that will match teams from the Big 12 and the SEC, starting with the 2014 season. Bidding for that is expected to start within two weeks, Bowlsby said.

“We’ve expressed our interest to both the Big 12 and the SEC,” Baker said. “We’re in a waiting mode.”

_ Jimmy Burch

 

Cowboys Stadium already vying to become one of two new BCS bowls

The Bowl Championship Series is going to a four-team playoff beginning with the 2014 season. The BCS presidents, who approved the change Tuesday, announced that six BCS bowl games will host the two national semifinal games on a rotating basis. The National Championship Game will rotate among those same bowls, perhaps more. The current BCS bowls are the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and Sugar Bowl. That leaves two more bowls to give the BCS a rotation of six. The free-for-all begins now to become one of those additional BCS bowls. Here's the statement released tonight by the AT&T Cotton Bowl CEO Rick Baker:

“It’s a great day for college football. We congratulate the conference commissioners and presidents for their diligent work to enhance the post season. We look forward to learning more about the opportunities that will be created by today’s announcement. With partners like AT&T and Cowboys Stadium, we believe we have a great story to tell.”

-- Stefan Stevenson
@FollowtheFrogs 

 

Cotton Bowl interested in learning more about new Big 12-SEC bowl agreement

Rick Baker, president of the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic, said officials at Arlington’s annual post-season game are interested in “learning more about” Friday’s creation of a bowl game that will pit champions of the Big 12 and Southeastern Conference against one another in future seasons.

The five-year agreement, announced Friday by officials of both leagues, would take effect with the 2014 season. Details about the game’s venue remain undetermined. Under existing agreements, the Cotton Bowl  matches a team from the Big 12 against an SEC opponent each season but does not include the conference champion from either league.

In a statement, Baker said: “Today’s announcement from the Big 12 and SEC is certainly exciting and intriguing news, and we look forward to learning more about this championship matchup. The AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic, through its 15-year partnership with both the Big 12 and SEC, has seen firsthand the great tradition and history of these two conferences. This relationship has been very good to us and is without a doubt going to be a spectacular bowl game.”

_ Jimmy Burch

Champions from Big 12, SEC to meet in annual bowl game, starting with 2014 season

Champions from the Big 12 and Southeastern Conference will meet in a bowl game, effective with the 2014 season, officials from both leagues announced Friday.

The matchup will be part of a five-year agreement between the leagues to pit their league football champions in a head-to-head setting unless one or both champions are selected to play in the new, four-team model to determine the national champion. If that occurs, a replacement team from one or both leagues would be selected to compete in the bowl game.

Specific details of the plan, including the venue for the games, will be announced later. But the goal is to play the game in prime time on or around Jan. 1 throughout the duration of the agreement.

Under existing agreements, the SEC champion plays in the Sugar Bowl and the Big 12 champion plays in the Fiesta Bowl. Champions from either league that finish in the top two of the final BCS standings compete in the BCS National Championship Game. Representatives from the SEC and Big 12 also meet in the Cotton Bowl at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, but that matchup does not include league champions.

Chuck Neinas, the interim Big 12 commissioner, helped arrange the matchup in negotiations with SEC commissioner Mike Slive. In a statement, Neinas said the new deal stands as “a landmark agreement between two of the most successful football conferences during the BCS era … Our goal is to provide the fans across the country with a New Year’s Day prime-time tradition.”

Slive said the matchup would “complement the exciting post-season atmosphere created by the new four-team model” to select future national champions.

Linking the two leagues also speaks to the future stability of the Big 12, which has lost four members to other conferences in the past two years. The list includes Texas A&M and Missouri, which will move to the SEC on July 1 _ the same day TCU and West Virginia become Big 12 members.

In a statement, incoming Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said he was “very excited” by the new agreement. Bowlsby takes over as Big 12 commissioner on June 15.

_ Jimmy Burch

BCS inches closer to four-team playoff, so let the complaining commence

The news out of Florida Wednesday could mark a watershed moment in college football history. According to Bowl Championship Series executive director Bill Hancock (see picture below), conference leaders are closer than ever to deciding on a playoff format which would most likely be in place for the 2014 season. Hancock said the group, which is meeting in Fort Lauderdale, hopes to whittle down potential formats Thursday to two or three top options. Conference leaders will then present the alternatives to school presidents, who will make the final call. A resolution and announcement could come as early as July. 

The most likely format would pit the top four teams in two national semifinal games, probably at two existing BCS bowls (Fiesta, Sugar, Orange, Rose) in No. 1 vs. No. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3 pairings.  The winners would then meet in the BCS National Championship Game at another BCS bowl site a few weeks later. I’d vote for having the semifinals the week after the regular season. In 2011, for instance, that would have fallen on Saturday, Dec. 10. Then, in my scenario, the two winners would have 3-4 weeks to prepare for a Jan. 3-8 championship game. Of course, that falls the week of or before most schools have semester finals. So that idea may not work. If so, then I could see the two semifinals being played Dec. 31-Jan. 1, with the championship a week later.

The sites of the semifinals and championship would likely rotate every year and would probably include other prime venue options such as Cowboys Stadium. The rest of the bowl schedule would most likely proceed as usual, with the same teams and affiliations being matched up, preserving the much-discussed bowl tradition TCU's Gary Patterson and Oklahoma's Bob Stoops have championed.

While the move towards a playoff is momentous, long overdue and praiseworthy, I foresee more finger-pointing, hair-pulling and paranoid delusions of grandeur by fans convinced their team is being screwed out of a semifinal slot. Just take a gander at the last four years … 

Last season the final BCS standings looked like this:

1. LSU	13-0
2. Alabama	11-1
3. Oklahoma State	11-1
4. Stanford	11-1
5. Oregon	11-2
7. Boise State	11-1
19. Houston	12-1

The top four teams are no-brainer choices to compete in the semifinals. But what about Boise State? Heard that before, right? And Houston, which defeated No. 22 Penn State in the TicketCity Bowl to finish 13-1? In 2011, a four-team playoff would have netted the Cougars nothing more. 

A playoff in 2010 would have been an even bigger mess. The final BCS standings looked like this:

1. Auburn	13-0
2. Oregon	12-0
3. TCU	12-0
4. Stanford	11-1
5. Wisconsin	11-1
6. Ohio St.	11-1
7. Oklahoma	11-2
8. Arkansas	10-2
9. Michigan St.	11-1
10. Boise St.	11-1
15. Nevada	12-1

OK, the top three were undefeated, including No. 3 TCU. That’s easy. But who get’s the fourth semifinal spot? Six teams finished with one loss, meaning five schools would have been scorned.

In 2009, the season that screamed for a playoff more than any in memory, would have, perhaps, been the easiest to seed in a four-team format. Here’s how the BCS standings looked at the end of the regular season:

1. Alabama	13-0
2. Texas	13-0
3. Cincinnati	12-0
4. TCU	12-0
5. Florida	12-1
6. Boise St.	13-0

The standings were top heavy with five unbeaten teams and one-loss Florida ranked higher than 13-win Boise State. Bronco fans surely would have felt burned, especially since Boise State defeated the Horned Frogs in the Fiesta Bowl.

2008 would have been a pairings nightmare, too, with eight one-loss teams in the final BCS standings, and two undefeated teams (No. 6 Utah and No. 9 Boise State) not even in the top four.

1. Oklahoma	12-1
2. Florida	12-1
3. Texas	11-1
4. Alabama	12-1
5. USC	11-1
6. Utah	12-0
7. Texas Tech	11-1
8. Penn State	11-1
9. Boise St.	12-0
22. Ball State	12-1

Instead of one or two teams being snubbed for a chance to play for a National Championship you would have had six fan bases ticked off, believing they at least deserved to be ranked fourth and involved in playoff. Yes, even Ball State fans.

Nothing is official yet, and there are still plenty of logistics to figure out, but the BCS is moving, albeit slowly, in the right direction. By 2014, college football will take a step out of the dark ages towards progress, but you can count on this: the bickering, bellyaching, and bloodletting over the BCS won’t go away. It may be worse.

-- Stefan Stevenson
@FollowtheFrogs 

 

 

Fiesta keeps BCS status, hurting Cotton's bid to become BCS bowl

The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl will remain a part of the Bowl Championship Series, members of the BCS presidential oversight committee ruled today, but Fiesta officials must pay a $1 million fine for apparent illegal campaign contributions and inappropriate spending.

The decision diminishes the possibility that the AT&T Cotton Bowl, based at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, could replace the Fiesta as part of the four-bowl mix that rotates hosting college football’s BCS National Championship Game on an annual basis. If the Fiesta Bowl had lost its BCS status, which BCS administrators discussed when allegations surfaced in March against former Fiesta officials, that would have created a vacancy in the BCS rotation by the 2014 season. But Wednesday’s decision kept the Glendale, Ariz.-based contest in the BCS’ four-bowl rotation for the foreseeable future.

Bill Hancock, executive director of the BCS, called Wednesday’s actions “appropriate … in light of the findings” by the committee. The $1 million fine will be donated to youth-based charities in Arizona.

In a statement, Cotton Bowl president Rick Baker said he respects Wednesday’s decision and expressed confidence that the action was “made in the best interest of college football.”

_ Jimmy Burch

Oklahoma 21, Texas 7 (half)

After a high-scoring first quarter, the second quarter was a more defensive affair. No. 8 Oklahoma leads No. 21 Texas 21-7.The half ended with a long pass attempt by Garrett Gilbert intercepted right in front of the endzone.

The Sooners struck first with an 18-yard touchdown run for DeMarco Murray and then a 16-yard pass from Landry Jones to Kenny Stills.

Texas got on the board late in the first quarter with a 60-yard touchdown run by D.J. Monroe. However, the Longhorns barely reached Sooner territory in the second quarter. The Longhorns will have the ball to begin the second half.

 

A new beginning...

No, kids, we're not talking about Episode IV of Star Wars (oh, that was A New Hope. Sorry). That's what is atop the program for the 74th annual Cotton Bowl Classic.

Here's a pic of it...

Hey, it's always good to get a collector's item. And you know it will be. No, mine will not be going on eBay.

-- Tracey Myers