A pending deal to restrict access to the Orange Bowl is one of the key reasons conference commissioners are leaning toward adding another game to the new college football postseason.
The original plan for the four-team playoff that will replace the Bowl Championship Series in 2014 called for the national semifinals rotating among six marquee bowls games.
Now it looks as if the rotation will consist of seven games. The conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director met in Chicago earlier this week and tweaking the original proposal to add another game was discussed.
“I think there is enough support for it to make it happen,” Sun Belt Commissioner Karl Benson said Friday.
The Orange Bowl is working on an agreement that would match Notre Dame or a Big Ten or Southeastern Conference team against an Atlantic Coast Conference team during seasons the game doesn’t host a national semifinal.
The ACC signed a 12-year agreement with the Orange Bowl this year that starts in 2014.
That would mean three of the six games – the Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl (Pac-12 and Big Ten) and the bowl that will eventually become the so-called Champions Bowl between the Big 12 and SEC – wouldn’t be accessible to teams outside the five power conferences in years in which they do not host a semifinal.
DAVIS CELL RECORDS
An attorney released cellphone records for fired North Carolina coach Butch Davis, saying it should prove “once and for all” that Davis did nothing wrong regarding misconduct by players.
The release follows a judge’s ruling last month that job-related calls Davis made on the phone should be public under state law.
The records, totaling 136 pages, span from March 2009 to November 2010. The school has said outside counsel reviewed them and found “nothing of concern.”
EXTRA POINTS
Arkansas coach John L. Smith returned to Fayetteville after attending his brother’s funeral in Idaho Falls, Idaho, on Friday. … Minnesota receiver Andre McDonald was released from the hospital and is listed as questionable for the game against Syracuse today. The school declined to say what caused McDonald to be put in the hospital, only saying that he was having a series of tests done to address the issue. The Minnesota Daily quoted McDonald as saying he had “a little problem” with his heart.
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