How about Alabama against Texas at Soldier Field on a January night?

Bill Hancock, executive director of the College Football Playoff, tells The Orlando Sentinel his group hasn't decided yea or nay on the chilling prospect.

Don't get your thermal underpants in a knot — a college Ice Bowl won't happen for several years. The next three national title games, also the first in the post-BCS era, will be staged at Jerry World (also known as AT&T Stadium) in Arlington, Texas; University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.

So, the earliest deep-freeze final would be 2018.

Cold-weather sites need not mean outdoor games. While the NFL prepares for a possible polar vortex at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey's tundra near New York, it's worth remembering the Super Bowl has been played in Minneapolis and Detroit.

It's also worth mentioning this: The day the Metrodome closed in Minneapolis this month it was well near zero with wind and snow.

There are big-market stadiums that could be college title game sites without requiring mukluks. Just to make you shiver, Sentinel writer Matt Murschel mentions Gillette Stadium outside Boston and Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

For those keeping score at home, Friday's forecast for Boston is for a high — a high, mind you — of 15 degrees. Philly will come out of a low in the single digits to enjoy a day of balmy 20 degrees before a 70 percent chance of snow on Saturday.

This year's BCS title game was played in Pasadena, Calif. Friday forecast: 77 high, 51 low.

Any questions?


TAILGATE-APALOOZA


So while you are warming up, consider: Daytona International Speedway, home of NASCAR's most renowned race, might welcome a college game to its grounds.

Pigskin at a racetrack? It's not an original idea, given that Virginia Tech and Tennessee will meet in 2016 at Bristol Motor Speedway. There are worse places for such events, like hockey at a baseball stadium in Los Angeles …

According to Sports Illustrated, Daytona honcho Joie Chitwood III is looking for a big game to show off renovations at the track. It wouldn't be the first time Daytona has been a game site. SI says at least four college games were played there in 1974 and 1975 involving low-level schools.

"We have the property where fans can camp inside and roll out to the game," Chitwood told SI.com. "It could be the largest tailgate inside one stadium."

If Chitwood can pull things together, a game could be staged in the 2016 season at the earliest.


AINT THAT A KICK?


While the NFL ponders sending extra points the way of the single-wing formation, the logical college football fan must wonder if his sport would follow suit.

"It's never really crossed my mind," Rogers Redding, the secretary-rules editor for the NCAA Football Rules Committee, told AL.com. "It wouldn't be the end of the world, obviously. It has not been talked about on the committee for the five or six years I've been on it."

Next to the touchback, the extra-point kick is football's least-exciting play. Kickoffs get run back now and then. So do field-goal tries (see Auburn-Alabama/Iron Bowl 2013).

Stats dredged up for the article found 97 percent of college kick tries were converted. Should fans cling to less than 3 percent hope of seeing something exciting?

While a cynic would suggest eliminating extra-point kicks would allow more TV ad time, Redding brightens the mood by reminding college and pro football aren't the same.

"Extra points aren't quite automatic in our game," Redding said. "They make far more kicks than they once did. But there's enough that it adds a little bit of drama. By allowing defenses to get the ball, it opens up the possibility where a kick gets blocked and it's returned the other way. Or once in a blue moon there's a safety. There's an element of excitement and surprise (to the extra point)."

That's something to kick around.


HOMESTAND


To answer the musical question "Where do football players come from," ModeAnalytics.com ground the numbers and showed where all 25,000 Division I college players call home.

The hotbeds aren't all that surprising: Florida, Texas, southern California and some big metro areas in other regions.

Mode also points out the most diverse roster in college football belongs to … Princeton. Ivy League cohorts Harvard and Dartmouth follow, with Army marching in at No. 4.

The broadest spectrum among major powers is a national university located in South Bend, Ind. Maybe there is sense (other than dollars) in Notre Dame selling its home games for NBC for national telecast.

At the bottom of the listings, No. 244 of 251 is Texas. New coach Charlie Strong obviously doesn't need to look far from Austin for talent, especially with Houston and Dallas in easy reach.

Otherwise, small regional teams are the least diverse. And while Big State U. proudly proclaims it will seal the borders, Mode's maps saw almost everybody recruits everywhere.

Contributors: Ray Slover, The Associated Press