Report: Sugar, Rose Bowls to Host First Semifinals

CBSSports.com's Dennis Dodd has a scoop on the first year of the college football playoff:

The Rose and Sugar bowls are likely to host college football's first major-college national semifinals in back-to-back games on Jan. 1, 2015 CBSSports.com has learned.

While it was stressed the situation is not finalized one source said that was a "likely scenario."

Click the link to see the whole article, which includes details on scheduling of the games and a pretty good guess as to the rest of the semifinal rotation.

It makes sense to have the two biggest bowls host the first two semifinal games. College football only gets once chance to hold its first playoffs ever, so there's no reason not to go with the two most prestigious sites for hosting those games.

Those two bowls, of course, are the tie-ins for the champions of the Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC champs. So what happens to them if these two games will be occupied by the top four teams? Well first of all, it's likely that at least two (if not three) of the four will be in the playoff, so it's not a huge concern.

Any that don't make it in the playoff will be guaranteed a spot in either the Orange Bowl or one of the three so-called "access bowls" (likely the Fiesta, Cotton, and Chick-fil-A Bowls) by some selection process that hasn't been fully finalized. The Orange Bowl does have a deal with the SEC and Big Ten along with Notre Dame, so if the Big Ten or SEC champ doesn't make the top four, the Orange is the likely landing spot. The Big 12 and Pac-12 don't have a similar deal (though it's not for lack of trying), so placing them is not really possible just yet.