By Holly Anderson

If we can depart from almost everybody else for just a minute: Naming the college football playoff the College Football Playoff was an inspired move. We’re not kidding. The worst anyone can say is that it’s boring, and this counts as a resounding win for its creators. Stretching beyond naming a thing what it is is how we ended up with “Leaders and Legends.”

However. These logos? Are gross. There was no reason to apply the same strategy to graphics work, y’all. At least get the Rose Bowl people to sketch something out for you next time you need to turn up pretty.

Interested fans and aficionados of metallic genital imagery can vote for their preferred playoff logo through next Monday. (Afraid of a four-way tie? The good folks of Good Bull Hunting have solved that for you.)

If we may, for a moment, shill for the least of four evils: The badge-looking one on the left evokes nothing so much as soccer, and could serve to bridge the cultural divide between Football People and Other Football People. It’s also easily convertible into a Lovecraftian stamp, in anticipation of Cthulhu’s return to reassert his dominion over the earth:

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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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Look, it’s this or the Beef-o-Rita UltraNachos-adjacent National Title Game. Choose your poison. (AP)

In a shocking twist of events, a very large and new football stadium is heavily favored to host a very large and important sporting event! From 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 to be accurate.’”

And now, the most chilling sentence you will read all day: “Sources familiar with the process indicated that Arlington and Tampa are the only two cities seeking to host the title game planned in 2015 as part of a four-team playoff system.” Arlington and Tampa, those pillars of college football tradition and pageantry. Do y’all realize how easy it would be to abscond with the national title game from Tampa to St. Pete? A Beef ‘O’ Brady’s-sponsored championship is just a high-stakes caper away.

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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In the dystopian future of the Big East, BBVA Compass Bowl trophies will be a highly valued currency. (AP)

• “Group of five” still just sounds so ominous. Jeremy Fowler reports on the coalescing system the Big East, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt are working on to distribute playoff revenue from the new postseason system:

In this proposed system, more than half the group’s roughly $86-million playoff pot would be distributed among the Big East, Mountain West, Mid-American Conference, Conference USA and Sun Belt as guaranteed base shares, according to a source with direct knowledge of the discussions. The source expects those shares to be evenly split, but added discussions are ongoing. The second tier pays out based on a conference’s body of work — the top conference gets the highest amount, then “X” amount for the next-rated conference, and on down. The third tier pays a kicker to the conference with the highest-ranked team, which is guaranteed an access bowl bid or, if among the top-four teams in the country, a semifinal berth in the playoff.

• Harbros’ early broing days. Check out Dan Wetzel’s tale of relatively wee Harbaughs recruiting youngsters to their dad’s team at Western Kentucky, including an appearance by one Willie Taggart.

• Exactly how you would’ve guessed. Former Miami Hurricanes make up the biggest slice of Super Bowl roster pie charts, but two of the next five teams on that list are … Marshall and Utah? Marshall and Utah! Go ThunderUtes!

• From the no-jokes department. Compelling story via OTL on UCLA researchers and evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in living football players.

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Just going to repeat yesterday’s MACtion preview caption here: “Behold Jordan Lynch. Fear Jordan Lynch.” (AP)

• Northern Illinois 31, Toledo 24. We do so love what’s become an annual late-season scramble for division supremacy between the Huskies and Rockets, and last night’s contest did not disappoint. The Huskies, who have won 10 games for the third straight year, will represent the MAC West in Detroit for the third consecutive season, and will face either Kent State or Bowling Green once they get there. Quarterback Jordan Lynch threw for 407 yards (a career best) and rushed for 162 more. No, by himself. No, seriously. Lynch was sent here by the football gods to make sure we all properly appreciate MACtion for the weeknight blessing it is. Message received. [BOX | RECAP]

• Ball State 52, Ohio 27. The Bobcats trailed by four points heading into halftime and were nearly doubled up by the end of the game, thanks mostly to a 21-point fourth-quarter scoring barrage from the Cardinals. Ball State scored three touchdowns in less than nine minutes on a Horactio Banks run, a Kelly Page pass and a Jahwan Edwards run. Page replaced starter Keith Wenning, who left the game in the second quarter with an Achilles injury. Also, this happened. [BOX | RECAP]

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@martinrickman I vote for a picture of Dianne Wiest since it’s the Big Wiest.

— Dan Weiner (@DanWeiner) November 13, 2012

• Let’s settle this now. Behold, the divisions of the new Big East: Central Florida, South Florida, Connecticut, Louisville, Cincinnati and Rutgers in the East East, and Boise State, Houston, Memphis, San Diego State, SMU and Temple in the East West. The ease of remembering mostly geographically based divisions aside (lookin’ riiiight at you, Increasingly Inaccurately Named Big Ten and ACC), new divisions mean new opportunities for mnemonic acronyms and Lovecraftian anagrams. IMPORTANT NOTE: For reasons relating to not wanting to come up with a bunch of U-words, we’re going with Central Florida instead of UCF here, South Florida instead of USF and Connecticut instead of UConn. Thank you for your understanding.

Our best suggestions in the clubhouse thus far:

East: Crooked Stepping Creeping Landscape Creep Rust, Considering Shaken Chosen Lawyer Creator Rake and Change Shrewd Cremini Lump Craze Riot.

West: Blistered High Mockery S‘more Stereo Turtle, Blended Holding Minor Sopping Sleepy Tangent and Broad Headache Manic Stiff Solace Toad.

Almost none of these words have anything to do with anything, which is sort of what we get for putting South Florida, Connecticut, Boise and San Diego State in the same conference. Please feel free to leave your own suggestions below.

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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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Just imagine Oregon’s mascot tackling one of these things. (AP)

• BEE CEE ESS. The latest BCS standings are here, and your freshly hatched BCS No. 1 is Kansas State; the post-Week 11 AP Poll is here, too, and Oregon is the new No. 1. Dan Wetzel explores an upside-down universe in which Notre Dame needs to catch a break.

• Bowling season draws nigh. A second FBS team has locked in a postseason bid, as BYU has accepted an invitation to the Poinsettia Bowl. This season hasn’t gone as smoothly for the Cougars as they might have hoped, but there are certainly worse places to while away a few winter days than San Diego. Stewart Mandel updates SI.com’s bowl projections, this week featuring Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Missouri and SMU.

• The Marquess Wilson thing. Just so we’re all caught up, here’s what we know right now: Washington State suspended star receiver Marquess Wilson, who subsequently announced he was leaving the team and dropped accusations of abuse on his way out. Here’s a StoryStream from our friends at CougCenter, tracing the winding path of these developments. Here’s a Spokesman-Review interview with Dennis Simmons, Wilson’s position coach, on Wilson’s allegations. And here’s Washington State’s president asking for both an internal investigation and one from the Pac-12.

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