Move over Detroit (and Dallas and Phoenix and Indianapolis and...), you have another city willing to bid for the right to host college football’s national championship game.
Not long after conference commissioners came to a consensus for how a four-team playoff should look -- provided it gets the approval of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, of course -- Jacksonville unofficially threw its name into the championship host site hat.
“Mayor [Alvin] Brown and [Jacksonville director of sports and entertainment] Alan Verlander are committed to bringing events like this to the city of Jacksonville and I think we’re going to be able to put together a great bid,” Gator Bowl president Rick Catlett told the Florida Times Union. ""This city has proven time and time again that it can host events such as this. We’re ready for the opportunity.”
Jacksonville currently hosts the Gator Bowl every year. There’s been some talk that perhaps the January bowl game could make its way into the BCS some way, somehow.
Seeing as a four-team playoff has yet to be adopted, there are no official details of how it will look. However, fully expect to see semifinal games incorporated into the bowl system with the championship game bid out, and a field composed of the four highest-rated conference champions provided they finish the regular season in the top six (see: Jim Delany plan).
How will those teams be ranked? It appears as though college football is leaning toward a selection committee.