Football

A plan to send the Southwest Conference runner-up to the Cotton Bowl if its champion has a chance to play for a national championship elsewhere is receiving a chilly reception from some bowl officials.

The SWC proposal asks the bowls to pass on a team ranked No. 2 in the country for the common good of setting up an annual national championship game.

“If you’ve got the No. 2 team, you want to keep it,” Sugar Bowl executive director Mickey Holmes said. “It could produce No. 1. Plus, you don’t want to give up your ticket base. We tell our ticket-buyers year in and year out that we will have the SEC champion.”

Orange Bowl president Harper Davidson said it would be better to deal with potential conflicts when they arise.