Big XII commissioner Bob Bowlsby said yesterday that by “sweating all the details” the college football leaders working on the sport’s new playoff will keep the regular-season relevant and distribute revenue fairly.  “I’m confident we’re going to get it right by the time it’s all done,” he said.

He also revealed what the current thinking on the selection committee’s make-up is:

“Some of them will be active people currently in the profession [and] retired people.  I’m probably a little more trusting than some others might by having gone through the basketball committee process.  The basketball process is a very honorable process.  If you have a dog in the fight, you leave the room.  You don’t try to influence the other people in the room for your own benefit.  This will be the same way.

Will it be harder to come up with four teams than it is to come up with 68 [in basketball]?  Yeah.  Would we be any less confident in terms of integrity?  No.”

Bowlsby said he expects the number of panelists on the committee to be about 18.

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Yesterday we told you of Sports Illustrated’s new profile of former LSU defensive back Tyrann Mathieu.  The profile was not the most positive thing ever written as it dealt with the Honey Badger’s dismissal from LSU’s team this season, his brief drug rahab stint, and possible NCAA violations that he might have committed while still a member of the Tiger football team.

According to SI.com, Mathieu’s image was used to promote parties at nightclubs in both Baton Rouge and New Orleans.  His image appeared on fliers and in video promotions for the events and — according to Sports Illustrated — Mathieu and current Tiger defensive tackle Anthony Johnson might have also received VIP treatment at the clubs.  If true, those claims could cause worries for LSU and Johnson.  They could also prevent Mathieu from returning to the Tigers next season as he had hoped.

Well, his adoptive parents have lashed out at SI.com over the report.

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When it comes to goofy excuses, a team from Louisiana claiming humidity in Florida hurt its chances of winning is way up near the top of the list.  Anyone who’s ever been to South Louisiana in August — when LSU goes through preseason drills — knows that the air is as thick as the jambalaya.  I once went to a July convention in New Orleans and walking out my hotel onto the street at 9am was like walking into a wall of gelatin.

Still, for LSU players, they’re saying the humidity got to them in Gainesville on Saturday.  Yep, you can apparently chalk up Florida’s 14-6 win over the Tigers to the weather.

Now, the average October humidity in Florida ranges from about 71% in Pensacola to 79% in Jacksonville.  The average October humidity in Baton Rouge is 73%.  And last Saturday in Gainesville the temperatures were in the 80s to boot.  So it’s a little hard to grasp the weather excuse that a few Tigers are tossing out there.

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Alabama fan Brian Downing has pleaded guilty today to two counts of obscenity for “sexually taunting” a passed-out LSU fan at a Krystal burger joint after the Tide’s BCS Championship Game win in New Orleans in January.  I’m sure you remember the story and have seen the video.

Unbelievably, prosecutors said a deal was reached before the trial that calls for Smith to be sentenced to two years in jail. 

What a sad story.

Downing acted stupidly and criminally in this writer’s view, but two years in jail on top of what he’s already been through?  That seems a bit steep.  Of course, I’m not the man who was “sexually taunted.”

The new college football playoff hasn’t come into existence yet and already tweaks are being made.  Example:  Initially, the conference commissioners had planned to use six bowls as part of the overall playoff rotation, but last week word came that a seventh bowl might be added (to give more opportunities to small-conference schools, no doubt in the hopes of fending off potential lawsuits).

Now comes word that the championship game will not be bid out to any ol’ city as initially expected.  Instead, sources told ESPN.com that in order to “expedite the process,” the first playoff title game on January 12, 2015 will go to one of six cities, all of which currently host a bowl game:

Arlington, Texas (Cotton Bowl)

Atlanta, Georgia (Chick-fil-A Bowl)

Glendale, Arizona (Fiesta Bowl)

Miami, Florida (Orange Bowl)

New Orleans, Louisiana (Sugar Bowl)

Pasadena, California (Rose Bowl)

Starting in 2016, any city can bid to host championship game, while the semifinals will rotate through the six — or seven — bowls picked to be, basically, “big boy” games.

Let’s get back to that date of January 12th, just for a second.  Wasn’t this whole thing supposed to speed up the college football season to make sure that it didn’t stretch further into January and into the dreaded second semester than university presidents have so often used as a reason to nix a playoff?  Well, that title game on the 12th will be the latest date for a championship game in college football history.

As usual, the conference commissioners and presidents say one thing… but do another.  Proving that we could have had a playoff years ago.  (As if you needed me to point that out to you.)

LSU starting LT Chris Faulk will reportedly miss the season with a knee injury
Alabama’s Nick Saban on available tickets vs W. Kentucky: “We can’t sell out with all the games we’ve won?”
Houston has reportedly put in a bigger bid to host the “Champions” Bowl than Arlington or New Orleans
Tennessee is paying nonconference foes Ga. State, Akron and Troy more than $2 million to visit Knoxville
Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart: “We want people in the stands, but we’ve got to earn that back.”
Two W. Kentucky players promise a victory at top-ranked Alabama on Saturday
Follow all 14 SEC schools and their recruiting efforts every day on MrSEC.com and twitter.com/mrsec

Longtime national sportswriter Mark Blaudschun is reporting on his own blog that Houston — not Arlington, not New Orleans, not Atlanta — has offered up the biggest pile of cash for the right to host the SEC/Big XII’s new “Champions” Bowl. 

Unfortunately, there are still a lot more unknowns than knowns when it comes to the leagues’ new game, which will kick off at the end of the 2014 season.  Will the game be played in one city each year taking on the name of that city’s bowl?  Will the “Champions” Bowl rotate between cities as was once expected when the game was first announced pre-playoffs.  Now with a playoff on the horizon, will there be a way to lock in a bowl rotation for the “Champions” Bowl inside the overall rotation of games hosting the semifinals and finals?

Blaudschun cites “source familiar with the bidding process” as saying that Houston, Dallas (Arlington), and New Orleans made the three highest bids overall.  Atlanta and San Antonio had also planned to put in bids, but — apparently — their bids were lower.  At least according to Blaudschun.

As we’ve stated before, until the details of the playoff are worked out, it’s going to be difficult for the SEC and Big XII to move forward with their own plans for the “Champions” Bowl.  And either way, the new set-up will wind up being more convoluted and confusing for fans than the old BCS means of selecting teams and games.

LSU has announced on its official website that there is “no change in the status” of Saturday’s game between North Texas and the Tigers in Baton Rouge.  “LSU officials are monitoring Hurricane Isaac and will assess the impact of the storm after it has passed through Baton Rouge.”

Sadly, according to Weather.com, Isaac is bringing more rain than Katrina and that could really test the rebuilt levee systems in and around New Orleans.  The storm has basically decided to stall and sit for a while as it moves inland.  Heavy rain is expected in Baton Rouge today and tomorrow with winds as high as 55 mph.  By Friday, the chance of rain drops to 60% with scattered thunderstorms.  By gameday, the forecast calls for a 40% chance of scattered thunderstorms.

The bigger issue, of course, is the damage that might be done in Baton Rouge as the storm passes through.

All our best to those of you going through this.  Be safe.

UPDATE — LSU cancelled practice today.

ESPN.com’s Brett McMurphy reported last night that two more cities — Houston and San Antonio — have decided to make bids for the new “Champions” Bowl being created by the Big XII and SEC.  Those two cities join Arlington, New Orleans and Atlanta in the bidding process.

The two leagues asked 10 cities in all to bid for the new game, but to date, Jacksonville, Nashville, Orlando, Phoenix (Glendale), and Tampa have all twiddled their thumbs.  The feeling is that officials in those five cities believe Arlington and New Orleans to be such heavy favorites to land the game that they don’t even need to get involved in this auction.

The fact that Houston and San Antonio have gotten involved is clearly a plus for both the SEC and Big XII as it will drive up the price of the game.  More bidders = a better deal.  For now, it’s believed the “Champions” Bowl will partner with an existing bowl, take part in the new playoffs as a semifinal game in four years out of the 12-year plan, and kick off for the first time on January 1st, 2015.

But no one is really sure of anything.

When first announced, it was believed the two conferences would create their own new game and bid it out to a different city each year like a Super Bowl or a Final Four.  Soon after, however, the new playoff was created and the idea of rotating the game became a bit more complicated — due to semifinal tie-ins, television contracts, etc.  Not to mention the fact that existing bowls already have the infrastructure in place to pull off a big game.

Now, as messed up and complicated as the new playoff and big bowl system will be — and if you thought the BCS was confusing, you ain’t seen nothing yet — it’s still theoretically possible for the SEC and Big XII to rotate their game between two, three or even more sites.  We just wouldn’t bet on it.  Like most others, we believe Arlington, Texas and Jerry Jones have the deepest pockets and that will result in the “Champions” Bowl becoming the Cotton Bowl.

At MrSEC.com, we would still prefer the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans get the nod because it’s more centrally-located between the two conferences and its a more tourist-friendly destination… but cash will likely rule the day.

From the moment the “Champions” Bowl was announced over the summer, media attention has been focused on two cities in terms of host sites: Arlington, Texas and Atlanta, Georgia.  Arlington because Jerry Jones has a huge stadium and deep pockets.  Atlanta because, well, because Atlanta bids on anything and everything the SEC is involved in and it’s hosted every major sporting event from the Super Bowl to the Final Four to the dadgum Olympics.

Even when news broke that 10 cities had been asked to bid on the game, most of the focus continued to fall on Arlington and Atlanta.

But if ESPN’s Brett McMurphy is correct, the SEC and Big XII’s plan to turn bidding for the “Champions” Bowl into a 10-city race has failed.  Instead, it’s looking like a two-city race as most initially expected.

Only Atlanta isn’t one of the two locales leading the pack.  New Orleans is.  (Amen.)

According to McMurphy’s report, because Arlington and New Orleans are such prohibitive favorites to land the “Champions” Bowl, “as many as seven of the 10 cities that received a request for a proposal may not bid on the bowl” at all.  The third city to go ahead and bid on the thing?  Atlanta.  Of course.

We suggested last week — when word leaked that 10 cities were in the running — that the SEC/Big XII were simply trying to drive up the price of the game by inviting more bidders into the auction, if you will.  The conferences asked the three cities already mentioned as well as Houston, Jacksonville, Nashville, Orlando, Phoenix (Glendale), San Antonio and Tampa to bid to host the game.  If the game were to rotate from city to city, then a metro area like Phoenix might have a shot.  But if the game is going to be a one-city-every-year event, then Glendale would seemingly have no real shot at landing the contest.  Which city leaders there apparently realize.

McMurphy states that Phoenix, Nashville and Tampa have already decided not to bid on the “Champions” Bowl.  The remaining four towns — Houston, Jacksonville, Orlando and San Antonio — are all still deciding whether to get involved or not, though “sources said most of the ‘four’ undecided cities likely won’t submit a bid because of the reality ‘that it’s a two-horse race.’”

On the positive side, we’re getting a better idea of what the “Champions” Bowl is expected to become… one bowl game.  With requests for bids going out to 10 cities, there was much speculation that the leagues might simply rotate their game on a yearly basis as was initially expected when the game was announced.  The SEC and the Big XII will be keeping all the TV and title sponsor cash — according to the leagues — so why not just put the game up for bid each year like a conference tournament, a Super Bowl or a Final Four?  That was the first stated plan.  But then came the new playoff system which will launch in 2014 along with the “Champions” Bowl.  Waters were muddied.

We spoke last week to an SEC source who told this website that the game was “still finding its legs.”  Translation: We’ll do whatever brings in the most cash, whether that’s one site or different sites every year.  But now it sounds like the options are narrowing for the SEC and Big XII.  If Atlanta is truly out, then the leagues must hope that Arlington and New Orleans throw down mondo cash in a head-to-head bidding war over who’s to become the annual host of the game (meaning the “Champions” Bowl would become the Cotton or Sugar Bowl in name).

Atlanta — for the record — should be out of the mix.  Not that it’s not a great city, but the SEC Championship Game is already held there.  Asking SEC fans to go to the same place twice in a month is a bit much.  And having Big XII teams play in the very heart of the SEC wouldn’t appear to be very fair, either.

Arlington has the cash, but it’s fast becoming the Atlanta of the Big XII.  The old Big Eight members of the Big XII have said for years that their league has been taken over by all things Texas.  Well, if the Big XII has set up shop in the Metroplex, why would the SEC be any more interested in going there than the Big XII is in going to Atlanta?

Cash, of course.

But here’s hoping the leagues do what makes the most sense.  If the game can’t/won’t be rotated between the two cities — which we would be fine with, by the way — then it should land in New Orleans permanently.  Yes, LSU is nearby.  But NOLA and Houston are the most centrally located venues for the game.  St. Louis (if it had a bowl game) and Memphis (if it weren’t viewed so unfavorably by so many) would make sense as well.  But the Big Easy trumps all of those cities when it comes to tourism infrastructure and experience hosting major, major sporting events.

If it’s a two-horse race between Arlington and New Orleans and there’s room for only one of them in the winner’s circle, here’s more hoping/wishing/praying that the latter edges the former at the wire.

But it’ll all be decided by cash.  And that would mean Arlington is still probably in the lead.  Even if it is the Big XII’s version of Atlanta.