Cotton Bowl officials met Wednesday and made two major decisions. One, they want a Big 12 Conference team to serve as a "home" team. Two, they want the 58-year-old bowl game to remain on Jan.1.
"The Cotton Bowl's goal is to deliver the Big 12 as our home team," said John Scovell, chairman of the committee in charge of the bowl's future.To emphasize their interest in the Big 12 - which will add Southwest Conference schools Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor in 1996 - the Cotton Bowl sent faxes stating their intentions to Big 12 athletic directors.
Scovell and Big Eight commissioner Carl James talked twice by telephone Wednesday. James said he instructed Scovell to contact Colorado athletic director Bill Marolt, chairman of the Big 12 athletic directors. Scovell did not talk with Marolt, who did not return telephone calls.
Big 12 athletic directors, who are pondering a championship playoff game between winners of the league's six-team divisions, had said they were waiting for word from the Cotton Bowl before deciding on a playoff.
"It's open for us to have both the playoff game and the New Year's Day bowl game in Dallas. We're not closing any doors," Scovell said. "We don't know enough about the (Big 12) playoff situation right now. We don't know if it makes sense - for the Big 12 and for us - to have both games in Dallas."
The committee considered a list of advantages and disadvantages to hosting a Big 12 playoff game and a New Year's Day bowl game with a Big 12 team as the host team.
Both sides are in the process of exchanging information.
"We've got to find out what the Cotton Bowl can come up with and what the Alamo Bowl (in San Antonio) can come up with," Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds said Wednesday. "We could conceivably lock up three teams."
The problem, Dodds said, is the Cotton and Alamo bowls "don't know what the networks want and can pay. They've got to find that out and tell us. We've got to tell them what we want."
Cotton Bowl officials have a list of possible opponents for the Big 12 representative. The possibilities included the Western Athletic Conference champion and second teams from the Southeastern, Big Ten, Big East, Atlantic Coast and Pacific-10 conferences.