The Gophers are not be getting any closer to a college football national championship if Saturday's loss to Iowa is any indication. But the city of Minneapolis? That's reportedly another story.

According to ESPN's Big Ten Twitter feed, Minneapolis is one of six cities that has submitted a bid for the 2017 college football title game, to be played in January of that year.

While it is not specified where the game would be located, it is all but certain the site would be the new Vikings stadium, slated to open in July of 2016. It's also unclear when winning bids will be announced.

A previous ESPN.com story said Jacksonville, Miami, San Antonio, San Francisco and Tampa were the other five cities that were slated to submit bids.

We imagine Minneapolis faces stiff competition against places where it will not be zero degrees that time of year, but it does at least put the city in the mix for that (and future) games.