LIKE IT IS

College Football Playoff finds a perfect fit

It is entering the most dangerous time of the year for college sports’ two big moneymakers, football and basketball.

The drought.

This is when fans of college football and basketball are still craving news, and there is just very little - this has a lot to do with the popularity of recruiting news by guys like Richard Davenport - but that doesn’t mean days off for reporters, just more digging.

For instance, one of the more popular topics Wednesday morning on the Internet was that Jon Bon Jovi’s son, Jesse, is considering walking on at Notre Dame.

That’s news?

Probably not as much as the recruitment of Snoop Dogg’s son, Cordell Broadus, or that P Diddy’s son, Justin Combs, is playing cornerback at UCLA.

It was and is a legitimate story that the college football playoffs have officially been named the “College Football Playoff.”

That’s what it was going to be called anyway, and while on that subject, ESPN reported Tuesday night the first playoff championship game will be played in Cowboys Stadium on Jan. 12, 2015.

That’s almost as natural a fit as naming the four-team playoff the College Football Playoff.

Jerry’s World is the best football facility in the world. Because of the huge television inside the stadium, there is not a bad seat in the house - outside of the press box - and it is easy to move around with the big corridors.

Arlington, Texas, is serviced by all the major airlines at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. It is a friendly city with plenty of restaurants and activities. Weather is never an issue in the domed arena.

In other words, Cowboys Stadium is the perfect place for an event, whether it be next year’s NCAA Final Four or college football’s first playoff championship game.

Jerry Jones, the former Arkansas Razorback football player and owner of the Dallas Cowboys, has turned his venue into one that hosts all sorts of events, but then, that’s why he built it.

Not long after those stories started getting some play, ESPN, the most powerful entity in college sports and maybe in the world of perspiring arts, announced a joint news conference with the SEC scheduled for May 2 in Atlanta.

That one is easy to figure out. The best and most powerful football conference in the country is probably getting a new television contract that includes a network.

The SEC should make more money than any other conference and, as one of the Big Five leagues, there is still more talk about the formation of a super conference that includes the 65 schools that make the most money.

The big schools have long since tired of smaller schools dictating NCAA rules.

Every NCAA member institution has the same number of votes (one). So if a motion is made to increase scholarships, that’s going to be over in one vote. The smaller schools without TV contracts don’t have the money for more scholarships.

Also, it seems the possibility of a stipend for athletes is becoming closer to reality, but that is part of the evolution of college athletics and its never-ending need for change.

Some sort of monetary gain for the athletes seems fair. Back in the 1950s, players received three hots, a cot, books, tuition and laundry money.

Today, they don’t get the laundry money, and coaches make about 100 times what they did back then, not to mention all the revenue the schools get by selling jerseys that feature the number of certain players.

For sure, if ESPN and the SEC make the announcement that is expected next week, at least 14 schools will be much more financially fit for the future.

Sports, Pages 17 on 04/25/2013