Perhaps as expected, college football's first championship game under the College Football Playoff will be played in Cowboys Stadium. Brett McMurphy of ESPN.com reports via Twitter the home of the Dallas Cowboys, the Cotton Bowl and a handful of other top college football match-ups and sporting events will provide the stage for the first championship game in the new era of college football postseason play.

Cowboys Stadium will get 1st title game; Fiesta, Cotton, Chick-fil-A get semifinal bowls. Official announcement Wed

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) April 24, 2013

One of the more interesting off-season developments has been the Photoshop fun being had in SEC territory. Florida's Brent Pease added another classic to the collection this spring by including some Gators watching in awe as Harry Potter soars by on his Nimbus broomstick in pursuit of a golden snitch.

Florida Qb's have the drive and desire #TheStandard @jeffdriskel @tylermurphy10 #buildingchampions twitter.com/CoachPease/sta…

— Brent Pease (@CoachPease) April 24, 2013

Rumblin', bumblin', stumblin'. (Photo Courtesy: USA Today Sports)

Only a few months removed from its crushing loss in the BCS Championship game to Alabama, Notre Dame finds itself in unfamiliar territory: In the national conversation.

For the Irish, this is a significant development, and a situation that has only occurred two or three times in the last 20 years. Entering the 2013 season, Brian Kelly can focus his energy on addressing a few specific questions and figures to be in excellent position for another successful campaign.

Saturday’s annual Blue-Gold Game was the de facto beginning to Notre Dame’s follow-up effort. Some general observations:

Sons of famous musicians playing college football is becoming quite the trend.  With Diddy's son Justin Combs already at UCLA and Snoop Dogg/Lion/Tiger's son Cordell Broadus still fielding offers from schools like USC, it's now classic rock's turn to take the stage.  Jon Bon Jovi's son Jesse Bongiovi, a football and lacrosse star from Poly Prep Country Day in Brooklyn, is going to be a walk on at Notre Dame.  The elder Bongiovi is a committed Fighting Irish fan while the younger Bongiovi told Irish Sports Daily Notre Dame has been his destination of choice for quite some time:

If you thought the new name for college football's new playoff format was boring - it's called College Football Playoff - then wait until you get a look at the logo possibilities.

College football fans are being given an opportunity to vote for the logo that will be used to represent the College Football Playoff for the next 12 years, starting with the 2014 college football season when the new format comes in to play. Voting is open at the new home site for the playoff. The four options fans have a chance to vote on through April 29 lack creativity and may look like something you would have stored away in your clip art archives in Microsoft Word, but none the less they have generated a buzz already. And when it comes to the mindset of college football's biggest influences and leaders, any sort of buzz is good buzz if the BCS era has taught us anything.

Logo Option 1

Description: Celebrating the highest level of national athletic competition, the collegiate football's white stripes become an integral part of the American flag.

Reaction: Here the CFP is playing off a sense of nationalism, which should never be criticized. Given the timing of the logo release and vote, after everything that occurred last week, this appears to be an early favorite in the running.

It is designed to look like a medal of honor of some sort, with a football hanging from a red white and blue ribbon. Of course, the "College Football Playoff" branding floats beneath the design.

If only we could get Army, Navy or Air Force in to the playoff mix at some point in the future. Don't forget, Navy will eventually be a member of The American. Patriotism all around!

For those who truly love college football, these really are exciting times. With conference commissioners and other big-time dignitaries in the sport meeting in Pasadena this week, it appears as though we are going to finally get some details on the long-awaited, much-anticipated college football playoff, which is set to kick-off following the 2014 season.

Well, the commissioners are in fact in Southern California, and on Tuesday the first big announcement came from their meetings. Unfortunately, that announcement came with a bit of a thud.

That’s because after fans have spent the last several months of watching, waiting and anticipating ESPN.com’s Brett McMurphy tweeted on Tuesday that the conference commissioners have agreed to name the first ever college football playoff... “College Football Playoff.”

McMurphy’s tweet is below, and please, please, everyone hold your applause to the end!

"College Football Playoff" new name for 4-team playoff, sources told @espn. Official announcement Tuesday evening

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) April 23, 2013

We’re kidding of course, and while we know it’s easy and typical for everyone to bash the commissioners for their decision here, we’re not going to do it. While the name “College Football Playoff” is hardly creative, let’s at least give them a little credit for not totally botching this thing all together.

D.J. Fluker may have had his Twitter account hacked. At least that is the story his agent is relaying this morning just days ahead of the NFL Draft. The Alabama tackle sent out a tweet early Tuesday morning saying he took money in college, saying "Agents was tryin to pimp me so I pimped them." The tweet was apparently deleted almost immediately and his agent sent out a tweet claiming the account had been hacked.

To all followers of @djfluker76 his account has been hacked. We will rue activate his account after the draft.

— Deryk Gilmore (@DerykGilmore) April 23, 2013

The phrase "round and round it goes, where it stops no one knows" seems to be about the only thing to accurately describe what the conference realignment merry-go-round ride of the past four or five years felt like. However, that may all be coming to an end thanks to the most unlikely of characters and scenarios. 

According to reports the ACC's 15 full-member institutions agreed to a "grant of rights," meaning that the conference now controls the schools rights to television appearances for the rest of the contract period, which is 15 years in the case of the ACC membership. 

What this means is this effectively ends the merry-go-round of conference realignment for the time being. The Big 12 can't poach FSU and Clemson and the Big Ten can't sink it's teeth into Virginia and Georgia Tech. Why? Well, who in their right mind would add a school who's TV rights they can't control? 

MADISON, WI - Despite the admittedly vanilla nature of his team and despite missing 6 likely starters on Saturday afternoon at Camp Randall, Wisconsin head coach Gary Andersen and the 12,050 people in attendance were able to get some answers to key questions facing the Badgers in 2013. 

The first question may have been why so vanilla, but that answer came quickly and bluntly from Andersen as he simply put it "Just it's on the Big Ten Network. That's the biggest reason."

So, while those in attendance never got to see the full packages of what this new look team can do, they at least got a look at what the basics of this team will look like in a new 3-4 defense and the leadership of Andy Ludwig at offensive coordinator.

Usually all eyes are glued to the quarterback position anyway, but perhaps no question in Madison is bigger than what was going on at the quarterback position. Entering the spring game it was a two-horse race to see who would challenge incoming JUCO transfer Tanner McEvoy come the fall. That race featured sixth year senior Curt Phillips and redshirt sophomore Joel Stave putting themselves above the rest of a crowded field.

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA - Penn State's search for a starting quarterback, as expected, was not concluded during the annual spring game. Instead, Bill O'Brien looks forward to an open competition for the starting quarterback job, which appears to be a knotted up between Steven Bench and Tyler Ferguson and will see stud recruit Christian Hackenberg added to the mix later this summer. Bench and Ferguson had fairly even performances in chilly Beaver Stadium.

This is all expected though. In fact, it all seems to be a part of the plan for Penn State in the search for the one who will replace Matt McGloin in 2013. There is no need to rush to a decision, not when the options all lack experience. Now O'Brien will take some time to sit back and watch some film and evaluate before getting a chance to work on the next steps in the summer.

Overall though Penn State seemed to have a positive outing. There were some good performances by players competing for starting jobs and others looking to secure a roster spot in the fall.

Here are some other notes that filled the pages in my notebook: