By Zac Ellis

After beating Georgia Tech in the ACC championship game, Florida State’s 2012 season culminated with an Orange Bowl win over Northern Illinois. Now, the Seminoles are enjoying the spoils of victory with some new hardware.

A video posted by James Garbarino, Florida State’s associate director of Seminole Productions, shows off the design of the team’s Orange Bowl championship rings. One side features the score of the game (31-10) and the ‘Noles’ record last year of 12-2.

Before last season, Florida State hadn’t claimed both an ACC title and a BCS bowl victory in the same campaign since its 1999 national championship season.

Executive director Bill Hancock (right) expects four teams in the playoff for at least 12 years. (AP)

By Zac Ellis

The newly named College Football Playoff might be the next big step in the sport, but many hope the upcoming postseason model will one day expand to include even more teams. It might be a while before that happens, though.

On Thursday at the BCS Meetings in Pasadena, Calif., executive director Bill Hancock said the playoff will remain at four teams for at least the duration of the 12-year deal, which goes into effect after the 2014 season.

Hancock: "We know people are going to want eight [teams], and some are going to want 16, or 32. But it’s going to be four, for 12 years."—
Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) April 25, 2013

The current plan will pit four teams, as chosen by a selection committee, in two semifinal bowl games to earn a berth in the new College Football Championship Game, which replaces the BCS National Championship Game. The first title game in the new playoff format will take place at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas on Jan. 12, 2015.

By Zac Ellis

Tuesday’s formal announcement surrounding college football’s new playoff system – henceforth known as the College Football Playoff — included a contest giving fans the opportunity to vote for the playoff’s logo. The playoff’s website, collegefootballplayoff.com, featured four potential logos for the new postseason model, which will go into effect after the 2014 season.

But voting had only been open for approximately 24 hours when ESPN’s Brett McMurphy reported that some voters illegally tipped the scales heavily in one direction:

Austin, TX, IP address hacked into College Football Playoff logo contest, voted 50K times for Logo 4—
Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) April 24, 2013

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Henceforth known as A Glass Prolate Spheroid Awarded To College Football’s Top Team. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

By Zac Ellis

We’ll say this about conference commissioners: They get right to the point. The forthcoming four-team college football playoff in 2014 will be called the College Football Playoff, according to ESPN’s Brett McMurphy, who first reported the story.

The new postseason format, which will debut after the 2014 regular season, is set to replace the current BCS format. The College Football Playoff’s announced name is perhaps the first disappointment in an otherwise highly anticipated development in the sport.

As one might imagine, the relative blandness of the moniker didn’t sit too well with the Twitterverse. Some responses, after the jump:

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Count us still decidedly in favor of having Lee Corso make all playoff-related decisions from the back of a giant rubber duck. (ESPN)

By Holly Anderson

Conference commissioners are convening in Pasadena today to begin working on the mechanics of the latest iteration of the BCS. Their tasks at hand include:

• Selecting three bowls to join the six-game semifinal sites pool. It is nigh impossible, at this point, to imagine any games other than the Fiesta, Cotton and Chick-fil-A joining the Rose, Sugar and Orange. Intrigue likelihood: minimal.

• Selecting the site of the first national title game under the new system. It’s Arlington. Everybody knows it’s Arlington, even though it’s polite to not act like it’s a foregone conclusion, and we’re all going to Jerry Jones Space Camp in January 2015. If all the items on the commissioners’ to-do list get knocked out this fast they’ll be bellying up at Pie’n Burger by noon.

• Selecting the selection committee.  With respect, we believe we have already attended to this matter in a thorough and fair fashion.

• Naming the new contraption. Said Bill Hancock to the AP: ”It will be simple. It will not be cutesy. And it will be descriptive. I’ve seen too many people make mistakes by trying to be cutesy.” (Hear what he thought, but did not say.)

A prohibition of cutesiness knocks off our first naming suggestion of “Bunny Cuddling Snuggletyme,” but we have more. Cast your votes after the jump for a new BCS handle that would require only minimal alterations to everyone’s embroidered rolling suitcases and company blazers:

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We did go back in the archives for a photo of the crystal football, but just look at what we found. Can you behold Bob Stoops’ 2004 hair without your breath catching in wonder? Just marvelous. (AP)

A Friday announcement out of the lair of the evolving BCS system brings news straight out of a sports-business Cinderella tale: All non-BCS bowls have been invited to “to consider whether they are interested in submitting a proposal to host the national semifinals and other bowl games”!

First, a reminder on how the postseason will work from the 2014-15 season on:

The Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl have already been chosen to host the first national semifinals of the playoff on January 1, 2015. The Orange Bowl and a yet-to-be named bowl will host the semifinals in the second year of the playoff. The two bowls that will host semifinals in the third year have yet to be named. Bids are being sought for the three to-be-named bowls.

If that sounds like a lot of very vague language, well, let’s consult our designated oracle on the matter:

BCS says 31 bowls may bid for right to host semifinals in playoff. Doesn't matter: 3 open spots will go to Fiesta, Cotton & Chick-fil-A—
Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) March 15, 2013

Righto. Will this stop us from creating Power Rankings of the bowl games we most wish to contend for host slots? It will not, because it is both March and Friday:

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Jordan Lynch and the BCS-busting NIU Huskies did not slide into glass slippers filled with oranges after all. (AP)

For more on Florida State’s Orange Bowl victory over Northern Illinois, check out Pete Thamel’s take and our Laff Riot Twitter wrap.

MIAMI – ”We made some plays, too,” Rod Carey said. “We didn’t make enough of ‘em.” Northern Illinois’ new coach neatly summed up the Orange Bowl, for those who missed it. Florida State defeated his upstart team tonight, 31-10. The Huskies kept it close in the first half and briefly made things interesting in the third quarter. But as the final score indicates, the Seminoles were just too much for this year’s unlikely BCS buster. [BOX | RECAP]

Still, consider the tens of thousands of fans and press and staff who attended tonight’s Orange Bowl game, and wonder just how many set foot in Sun Life Stadium expecting a Huskies win. It can’t have been many. We were not among those who came in believing in an upset. But we don’t show up at these things because we know what’s about to happen. We show up because of what might happen.

And Northern Illinois was about the unlikeliest BCS-buster imaginable from Week 2 of the 2012 season on, seeing as the Huskies lost to Iowa at home in Week 1. Our big-game interloper hopes were pinned in September on the likes of Ohio, with its creamy-dreamy schedule and an upset of Penn State to its credit, and Louisiana Tech, with its score-anywhere offense. We didn’t even think NIU would win the MAC. (Of course, we also predicted South Florida would make an appearance in this very game. Isn’t August fun?)

The Huskies did their best to remain under the buster-radar early on, scraping by the likes of Army (one-point victory) and Kansas (seven-point victory), while the Bobcats staged a largely listless season after that first win in Happy Valley. By mid-October, we had (temporarily) written off the idea of seeing any non-AQ squad in a big-money game. So many teams would have to lose, at the same time, to give NIU the required ratings boost. It was so, so unlikely — until it happened, and off we all went to Miami.

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• Oh, NOW you don’t like the BCS. Not before. Just now. Northern Illinois is bound for the Orange Bowl as the first team from the MAC to earn a BCS bowl bid. We, as you might imagine, are delighted. Others are not. In other words, it’s just like every other BCS selection reaction ever.

Herbstreit calls NIU’s BCS berth “A sad state of college football.”

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) December 3, 2012

Herbstreit on #BCS selection show: “To put Northern Illinois in the BCS is a joke.” — Mark Schlabach (@Mark_Schlabach) December 3, 2012

Say what you will about NIU, its bid was automatic, just like Wisconsin’s and Louisville’s. NIU ranks ahead of both in every poll. — Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) December 3, 2012

“I can’t believe they let NIU into the sacrosanct Orange Bowl.” <—someone who has never watched the Orange Bowl — edsbs (@edsbs) December 2, 2012

Rule that got NIU in was established to help defend BCS from anti-trust lawsuit. ESPN acting like it’s a football decision — Dan Wetzel (@DanWetzel) December 3, 2012

Is there any other sport in America where people DESPISE the underdog? Any sport in the world? — Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) December 3, 2012

Again, according to every current human poll and a consensus of the BCS computers, NIU’s not even the worst BCS bowl team this year. — Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) December 3, 2012

To steal a @billsimmons metaphor, a lot of the NIU whining seems like people who are also mad the house doesn’t win more in blackjack.

— John Infante (@John_Infante) December 3, 2012

For takes longer than 140 characters, see Samuel Chi’s “Deal with it” and Matt Hinton’s “Blame the Big Ten and Big East.” The final regular-season BCS standings can be found here; the tell-all Coaches’ Poll results are here. For our full bowl schedule, click this way.

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Will Kent State’s Dri Archer earn a return to his home state of Florida this postseason? (AP)

• Peasants at the gates! Utah State and San Jose State make their first appearances in the BCS rankings, while Northern Illinois enters the BCS Top 25 for the first time in 2012. Are we in for some surprise gate-crashers in the big-money bowls after all? Maybe. Allow SMQ to explain it all for you: “So even for the winner, the potential stakes in the MAC title game range from the Orange Bowl to the GoDaddy.com Bowl, with nothing in between.” And remember not to overlook this Friday’s NIU-Kent State showdown while penciling the Golden Flashes in for a trip to Florida.

• Cajuns to New Orleans to repeat legendary tailgating feats. Bowl invitations issued over the weekend: Utah State to a second consecutive Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, Nevada to the New Mexico Bowl and the Ragin’ Cajuns to their second New Orleans Bowl. Now, we didn’t see the Cajuns in their postseason appearance in person last year, but we have been to New Orleans for college football games, and been to tailgates in Lafayette, and this game just became our first mandatory trip of the postseason. Stewart Mandel’s latest bowl projections can be found here, freshly updated with all invited teams.

• Coach firin’ season, continued. Jon Embree tells the Denver Post he’d been told just last week that his job was safe … one Post columnist calls Embree’s ouster shameful and unjust … Marshall’s defensive coordinator has resigned … and Ellis Johnson’s press conference has been canceled, with a team meeting scheduled for 4:00. Nothing to see here!

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“Why, yes, this legal pad IS made entirely out of recycled hundred-dollar bills,” Bill Hancock is probably thinking here. (AP)

• Don’t run. We are your friends. SI.com’s Stewart Mandel was in Denver for the playoff meetings Monday and returned with a full report on the near future of college football:

“There will be plenty of money for everybody,” said Hancock. “The bottom line is more.”

Click through for actual details of the approved postseason format and the bowls and spoils in question.

• Roster blotter. Oregon has lost safety Avery Patterson and Tennessee has lost linebacker Curt Magitt, both to torn ACLs. In happier news, an update from Houston on defensive back D.J. Hayden tells us Hayden has been released from the hospital following his freak heart injury sustained last week in practice. The Cougars’ team physician, Walter Lowe, had this to say in a school release:

“Looking at the whole course of events and the severity of the injury, D.J. has progressed remarkably well and is out a lot sooner than expected. He’s got a lot of healing left to do as the procedure to repair the inferior vena cava is much like a heart transplant. The sternum should take around three months to heal and D.J. is expected to be able to resume normal activities without contact in three-to-four months.”

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