Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, long considered the heavy favorite to host the first major-college playoff championship game, is facing only one other bidder, according to reports.

Per Brett McMurphy of ESPN.com, Cowboys Stadium is “a virtual lock” to host the game on January 12, 2015.

According to Chuck Carlton of The Dallas Morning News:

College football officials have pointed to Cowboys Stadium as an overwhelming favorite to host the first title game for months. One source indicated those previous predictions “will prove be accurate,” according to the Morning News.

Translation: it would be a huge upset if the title game isn’t in Arlington.

At the same time, Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium has hosted big events, including Super Bowls in 2001 and again in 2009. But several possible contenders declined to bid.

An official announcement is expected to come during a meeting of the conference commissioners April 23-25.

The Jan. 1, 2015, playoff semifinals will be held at the Rose Bowl presented by Vizio in Pasadena, Calif., and the Allstate Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.

Dallas & Tampa only bids to host 1st CFB title game 1-12-15; Dallas "virtual lock" for game sources told @ESPN—
Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) March 26, 2013

ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit was particularly miffed that Northern Illinois received a berth to play in the Orange Bowl, calling it “an absolute joke,” “a sad state for college football” and an “injustice.”

Northern Illinois was the surprise inclusion to the BCS bowls, finishing in the top 16 of the BCS standings above two conference champions (the Big Ten’s Wisconsin and Big East’s Louisville) to secure its spot. For the first time in BCS history, a team from a non-automatic qualifying conference that was not undefeated was included in a BCS bowl. That knocked No. 11 Oklahoma out of a BCS bowl slot.

“The fact that Northern Illinois is in the BCS in 2012 is really a sad state for college football and where we are with the current system,” Herbstreit said. “Thank goodness we’re moving toward a new system in 2014. They don’t deserve to be in the BCS this year.

“Are you kidding me with Northern Illinois playing in the BCS? There are two things here that stand out. Northern Illinois — no one knew they were playing until the Toledo game a few weeks ago. … You’re going to leave Oklahoma out to put Northern Illinois into a BCS bowl game? Are you kidding me?”

Northern Illinois finished 12-1 this season and won the MAC Conference championship. The Huskies won their final dozen games after losing an 18-17 squeaker in their opener to Big Ten foe Iowa, which ended up finishing 4-8. Herbstreit said that was all the more reason they should be kept out of the BCS.

“To put them in the BCS is an absolute joke to the rest of these teams who are more deserving,” he said. “… Iowa’s the worst team in the Big Ten. They lost to Iowa.”

Here’s video of Herbstreit’s substantial rant:

Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein was removed from the team’s game Saturday because of concussion worries. (Ed Zurga/Getty Images)

Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein’s injury raised fears of a concussion on Saturday, prompting him to be removed from the Wildcats’ 44-30 victory over Oklahoma State, Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel reported Sunday night.

Klein was taken out of the game after a third quarter drive in which he was hit especially hard on numerous plays. The drive went for eight plays and 93 yards before Klein scored on a 1-yard quarterback sneak. Afterward on the bench, Klein was evaluated and did not remember certain details from the drive, Wetzel reported.

He never returned to the game, which was already firmly in Kansas State’s grasp when he left. But he did stay on the sidelines, according to Wetzel.

More from Wetzel’s report:

Kansas State media relations director Kenny Lannou said Sunday afternoon the school had no update on Klein.

“He obviously was injured or we wouldn’t have taken him out,” [head coach Bill] Snyder said Saturday night.

The level of concussion – if there was one at all – and the status of the Heisman Trophy candidate for Saturday’s game at Texas Christian is unknown.

Kansas State is ranked No. 2 behind Alabama in the BCS standings released Sunday night, sitting at a perfect 9-0 heading into its final three regular-season games.

Glendale, Arizona’s University of Phoenix Stadium will be one of the sites considered for the 2015 BCS Championship Game. (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images).

Six cities will be considered to host the first college football championship that will involve a playoff in the Football Bowl Subdivision, reports ESPN.com. 

The first national title game will be played on Jan. 12, 2015.

The four current BCS bowls — the Fiesta in Glendale, Ariz., Orange in Miami, Sugar in New Orleans and Rose in Pasadena, Calif. — along with the Cotton (Arlington, Texas) and Chick-fil-A (Atlanta) bowls will be the only sites that will have the opportunity to host the 2015 title game.

A decision on the site is expected to be announced next year and requests for all future national title games have to be bid on.

Other cities expected to be interested include Indianapolis, Detroit, St. Louis, Orlando, Fla., Houston, San Diego, Jacksonville, Fla., and Tampa, Fla.

The rights to the college football championship, which would pit the winners of the four-team playoffs recently approved by university presidents, may cost more than the entire Bowl Championship Series package did last year.

The Sporting News’ Matt Hayes reports the deal for the singular title game could be more than $200 million.

#BCS source tells SN: new stand alone championship game will be worth "at least" $200 million a year. Entire BCS package was $172 in 2011.

—
Matt Hayes (@Matt_HayesSN) July 18, 2012

BCS source to SN: #ESPN closing in on landing "entire" #CFB playoff package.

—
Matt Hayes (@Matt_HayesSN) July 18, 2012

The four-team playoff is set to begin in the 2014 season. The two playoff games will rotate among six bowl sites, while the championship game will be held at a neutral site on the first Monday in January.

ESPN recently extended its contract with the Rose Bowl, forking out nearly $80 million per year until 2026 according to the SportsBusiness Journal. The article also stated that total package rights could cost as much as $600 million.

The Alabama Crimson Tide, the 2012 NCS….or BCS Champions. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

First it was The Bowl Alliance, then the Bowl Championship Series, and coming soon the National Championship Series?

Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby told the San Antonio-Express News that the Big 12 Conference is stable and new members TCU and West Virginia bring winning traditions with them. He also had a name for the new four-team playoff which will start in 2014 and decide a real national champion on the field.

“We’re going to capture back New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. College football will be preeminent on those two days with six great football games,” Bowlsby said. “I’m very excited about what has happened with the BCS, which will be probably known as the national championship series going forward.”

The championship game will rotate among neutral sites. The semifinals will be played on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, and the national title game will be played on “Championship Monday,” or the first Monday in January that is six or more days after the final semifinal game is played.

ESPN will continue to broadcast the Rose Bowl through 2026. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

One day after a four-team football playoff was approved, ESPN locked down the most historic bowl there is.

The Rose Bowl, the Pac-12 and the Big Ten reached a 12-year contract extension with ESPN on Thursday for the network to continue broadcasting “The Granddaddy of Them All” through 2026, according to an ESPN press release.

The game will be played at 5 p.m. on January 1 every year, unless it’s a Sunday, in which case the game would be on the 2nd.

No matter the post-season rotation of bowls for the upcoming playoff three-bowl, four-team playoff, ESPN owns the rights to the Rose Bowl each year. Since 1989, either ESPN or ABC has carried the bowl.

SI.com writer Stewart Mandel chronicled the 66-year journey of a college football playoff, and Andy Staples wrote on how the joyous day was long overdue.

If Jacksonville hosts an NCAA Football Championship, the city hopes fans won’t have to stay on cruise ships because of the lack of hotel space. (Bryan Bahr/Getty Images)

Jacksonville hosts the Gator Bowl, has hosted ACC title game, the Florida-Georgia game, and a Super Bowl.

With the NFL’s Jaguars help, the city is making a serious push to host the NCAA Football Championship. According to The Florida-Times Union, the team will enter a public-private partnership to try to bring the game to town.

Conference commissioners recently announced plans to scrap the unpopular Bowl Championship Series in favor of a four-team playoff aimed at crowning a true national champion in college football.

“We’re ready to do whatever we can to help the city in this effort,” Jaguars CFO Bill Prescott said. “This is a win-win for everyone involved if Jacksonville can get this game.”

The issue with Jacksonville when the Super Bowl came to town in 2005 was the lack of hotel space in the area and cruise ships were used to make sure there was enough room to accommodate fans.

“We’d be doing the people of Jacksonville a disservice if we didn’t go after this game aggressively,” Jacksonville Sports and Entertainment chairman Alan Verlander said. “This game can be like a Super Bowl. It can be a rallying-point event, a transformative event that can change a city and a community.”

Sources have indicated to Mark Schlabach of ESPN.com that a four-team playoff hosted at a neutral-site could be in effect for the 2014 season, according to a report.

Several conference commissioners and other powerful college football representatives are meeting in Florida this week to discuss the future of the BCS.

“I don’t know how they could walk back at this point, but they might,” the source told Schlabach. “I think because they’re dealing in a world of compromise, I think there’s a chance they could only tweak the current system and only deal with No. 1 versus No. 2. But I think they’re too far out on a limb to turn back now.”

There are several factors that still must be decided, but all signs indicate that a change is in the works.

Conference commissioners are pushing for semifinal games to be played New Year’s Day, with the final taking place a week later.

Representatives from the Pac-12′s member schools agreed in principle yesterday to unite against college football’s Bowl Championship Series system, proposing to replace it with a playoff system, reports Craig Harris of the Arizona Republic.

Under the new system being proposed, only conference champions would be eligible to compete for a national championship. This would eliminate the possibility of any future intra-league title clashes such as the one this past season between Alabama and LSU.

“I don’t hear anyone saying business as usual is acceptable,” said Edward Ray, Oregon State University’s president and chairman of the Pac-12 universities’ CEO group. “We need change.”

The university officials did not take a formal vote yesterday, but they expect to at their next meeting later this year. If the Pac-12 makes a formal recommendation in June, it would come just before the BCS bowls begin to renegotiate their BCS contract renewals late this summer. The BCS contracts expire in early 2014.

Sources have told Brett McMurphy of CBS Sports that there is strong support to increase bowl eligibility to seven wins.

College football sources told @CBSSports there's "strong support" to increase bowl eligibility to 7 wins in 2014

—
Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyCBS) January 25, 2012

In the last two years, 27 teams who held 6-6 records went to bowl games which is about 20% of the field, McMurphy reported.  The potential seven win system, starting in the 2014 season, could decrease the number to 5-12 fewer bowl games played.

Under the current bowl eligibility system, for a team becoming bowl eligible they must have a winning record or have won their conference.

If the LSU Tigers defeat the Alabama Crimson Tide in the BCS National Championship game on Monday night, LSU head coach Les Miles will receive a $5.8 million salary raise as a result, according to CNBC.

Miles has a clause in his contract that promises that if he wins a National Championship, the school would have to pay him $1,000 more per year than whoever is currently the highest paid coach within the Southeastern Conference. Currently, the highest paid head coach in the SEC is Alabama’s Nick Saban, who earns an annual base salary of $4.73 million.

Miles’ current salary is $3,751,000 per year. If the team wins Monday, it will then increase to $4,731,000 per year over the next six years.

Interestingly enough, when LSU won the National Championship in 2007, Miles’ salary was raised at the time to top Nick Saban’s previous salary of $3.75 million per year.

The Big East have filed suit against West Virginia University in Rhode Island court, according Brett McMurphy of CBS.com. The suit is aimed at forcing West Virginia to comply with conference bylaws.

The Big East has a 27-month notification deadline for teams who wish to leave the conference. West Virginia was officially accepted into the Big 12 last week; however they have made it known they would like to join the conference as soon as next season.

“Today’s legal action underscores the Big East Conference’s stated position that it will vigorously pursue the enforcement of its rights and West Virginia University’s obligations under the conference’s Bylaws which West Virginia formally agreed to and helped construct,” Big East commissioner John Marinatto said in the official release.

West Virginia filed suit against the Big East last week in attempt to avoid the 27-month notification rule. The university argued that the conference failed to keep itself a viable football conference, which ultimately led to the departure of Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and TCU from the Big 12’s football lineup.

The Big East has reportedly cancelled a meeting in which a potential football superconference was to be discussed, according to ESPN.

It was reported yesterday that the commissioner of the Big East would meet with the commissioners of the Mountain West and Conference USA to discuss the potential of merging to join a 28-32 team football conference. The idea behind creating such a conference was to attempt to secure automatic BCS status.

The Big East currently holds such a status with the BCS, however they are at serious risk of losing it after the 2013 season. News broke today that two Big East schools, Louisville and West Virginia, are currently vying for a potential future spot in the Big 12. If either of those two team’s leave, the conference will have lost four major schools this year.

The Mountain West and Conference USA have already agreed to merge together as a two-conference football association in their own attempt to secure automatic Bow Championship Series status. The Merger of all three conferences however would represent the best chance at such a bid for all.

Despite initial reports that The Big 12 had lined up West Virginia to replace Missouri once the Tigers officially made the move to the leave for the SEC, The Mountaineers are now reportedly in “holding pattern,” according to The New York Times. Reports have surfaced that The Big 12 may admit Louisville instead of West Virginia, and that it’s “50-50 right now between West Virginia and Louisville.”

West Virginia officials said Tuesday that the deal was “solid” and many viewed West Virginia’s official admittance to The Big 12 as simply a formality. However, Louisville raised objections and is now a strong contender to be the team that replaces Missouri, upon their departure to the SEC, in the conference. According to The Times, last minute lobbying by Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, helped slow West Virginia’s admittance into the conference.

The departure of either school would mark the fourth team to leave Big East after Pittsburgh, Syracuse and TCU announced intentions to leave for greener pastures earlier this year. With this latest potential loss, only Connecticut, Rutgers, USF, Cincinnati and either Louisville or West Virginia would remain as members the conference’s football league.

As part of their departure, the leaving team must pay a $5 million exit fee. CBS Sports reports that this number could be as high as $10 million if either school announces their intention to leave after the conference adds either Navy or Air Force. Big East commissioner John Marinatto reportedly met with Navy, Air Force and several other schools last week in an attempt to bolster the conference’s football presence.

Separate reports, however, have indicated that the Big East may be contemplating joining forces with the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA to form a 28-32 team football conference. 

Despite initial reports that The Big 12 had lined up West Virginia to replace Missouri once the Tigers officially made the move to the leave for the SEC, The Mountaineers are now in “holding pattern,” according to The New York Times. Reports have surfaced that The Big 12 may admit Louisville instead of West Virginia, and that it’s “50-50 right now between West Virginia and Louisville.”

West Virginia officials said Tuesday that the deal was “solid” and many viewed West Virginia’s official admittance to The Big 12 as simply a formality. However, Louisville raised objections and is now a strong contender to be the team that replaces Missouri, upon their departure to the SEC, in the conference.

The departure of either school would mark the fourth team to leave Big East after Pittsburgh, Syracuse and TCU announced intentions to leave for greener pastures earlier this year. With this latest potential loss, only Connecticut, Rutgers, USF, Cincinnati and either Louisville or West Virginia would remain as members the conference’s football league.

As part of their departure, the leaving team must pay a $5 million exit fee. CBS Sports reports that this number could be as high as $10 million if West Virginia announces their intention to leave after the conference adds either Navy or Air Force. Big East commissioner John Marinatto reportedly met with Navy, Air Force and several other schools last week in an attempt to bolster the conference’s football presence.

Separate reports, however, have indicated that the Big East may be contemplating joining forces with the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA to form a 28-32 team football conference.