College Football

College football playoff: Turn down San Diego if you dare

San Diego submitted a bid to host a playoff semifinal along with some traditional college football bowl sites. The city is surely an underdog to get a game, but maybe it shouldn't be?

By Peter Berkes Mar 28, 2013, 1:51pm EDT

Cities have put in bids to host the semifinal games for the college football playoff coming in 2014. The Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl have already been locked in as semifinal sites, which will be rotated every three years through 2026. That left three remaining spots, and conventional wisdom seemed to dictate that those spots would go to Dallas (Cotton Bowl), Phoenix (Fiesta Bowl) and Atlanta (Chick-fil-A Bowl), three major cities with a long history of pulling off major bowl games every year.

Well, as it turns out, those three cities all submitted bids to host semifinal games. They weren't alone, though, as San Diego also put in a bid, according to ESPN's Brett McMurphy, presenting us with a delightful case of "which one is not like the others."

Every year, San Diego hosts the eternally delightful Holiday Bowl and regularly hosts the Super Bowl. However, when put up against traditional college football tent poles like the Cotton, Fiesta and Chick-fil-A Bowls, it just doesn't have the same cachet. Perhaps if the bid committee tried to draw on the unique allures of the San Diego area, it might have a chance. However, what exactly are those allures?

The zoo. People still like zoos, right? Look at the size of that got dang zoo
San Diego has an arena specifically to hold roller derby and indoor soccer
The city still looks like it's in 1977, which should be back in style any minute now
Fish tacos, which are unavailable anywhere else in the country shut up shut up it's the truth
Definitively more chill than those other three cities combined
Did you even watch Terriers?

Just try and say no, playoff people.