The Southland Conference has joined forces with Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas, in an effort to bring the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) game to the city.
Representatives from the bid committee, which includes the Southland Conference as host, will meet with the NCAA in Indianapolis on Feb. 25 to make its final presentation in an effort to secure the game for the next three seasons (2010 to 2012).
The NCAA will make a decision no later than the first week of March. Frisco and Chattanooga, Tenn., are the only finalists. Chattanooga has hosted the championship game the past 13 years.
"It's the level of football our Southland Conference competes at and we'd like to have that event here," said Southland Conference commissioner Tom Burnett, whose league is based in Frisco. "I know early on when I started talking with city officials and the stadium folks that I discovered they had interest in playing a college football game in that stadium since it opened. This is a way to do it."
Burnett said the stadium would seat about 22,500 fans for football.
The next championship game is scheduled for Jan. 7, 2011, the same day that the Cotton Bowl Classic is to be played in prime time on Fox. Burnett said the NCAA told him that if Frisco gets the game, it would work with local officials and ESPN, which televises the game, on the date.
"We don't want to be going head-to-head with the Cotton Bowl in this market," Burnett said.
The game has normally been played in December. But next season, the FCS will add another round to the playoffs, making it five weekends. That will force the final two teams to play in January amid the bowl activity.