The next NCAA Division I Football Championship game – on Jan. 7, 2011 – will be in Frisco, Texas, at Pizza Hut Park. Not everybody is happy about this, with Greater Chattanooga Sports and Event Committee president Scott Smith putting it succinctly:

“I am sick over this decision.”

I’m a bit surprised, too. There are, give or take, just 30 FCS teams on this side of the Mississippi River, leaving roughly 95 on the other side. But Frisco is home to the Southland Conference office. And “The Oven,” as some call Pizza Hut Park, home to FC Dallas of the MLS, is just a 40-minute drive from the Dallas-Forth Worth airport.

Having made three trips to Chattanooga, Frisco is going to be easier to get to from here.

Plus the Griz went 1-4 in trips to Tennessee, including the Great Turf Disaster of 2004. Chatty was able to host six more games after that debacle. Which is plenty.

-Fritz Neighbor