As autumn gives way to winter each year, an American sports tradition begins. That tradition is not the celebration of the beauty of college football — the piercing in−state rivalries, battles for bowl eligibility and upcoming conference championship games.
Instead, the end of the college football season has become the time when critics, whether from within the college football world or not, stand up to decry what may be the least popular and most hated institution in sports: the Bowl Championship Series (BCS).
Using a complex formula that combines human polls with computer selection methods, the BCS ranks each college football program with the goal of identifying the top two teams that will ultimately face each other in the National Championship Game. The winner of this game, the last college football contest of the season, is automatically declared that year's national champion.
The BCS system was first instituted in 1998 with the intention of creating a de facto national championship matchup at the end of each season. Prior to the creation of the BCS, there were debates at the end of the year about which team should be named the champion. Often, two teams were declared co−champions, as it became nearly impossible to declare one winner without pitting them against each other. While it is extremely difficult to explain all of the nuances of this extremely complicated system, here are the basics of the BCS.
The Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl were designated as the four BCS bowls, and each plays host to the BCS National Championship Game every four years. The champions of the six BCS conferences — the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac−12 and SEC — are guaranteed appearances in one of the BCS bowls. To fill the remaining BCS slots, the bowl committees choose from a field of eligible at−large schools — teams that finished in the top 14 in the BCS standings but did not win their conferences. This season, potential at large selections include No. 2 Alabama, No. 4 Stanford, No. 6 Arkansas, and No. 7 Houston.
One can already see the deficiencies of this system. The biggest issue has been that traditionally successful programs that are not in BCS conferences — mid−majors like Boise State, Utah and TCU — have virtually no chance of finishing No. 1 or 2 in the final BCS rankings. In fact, a non−BCS team has never qualified for the national title game and these teams rarely even appear in BCS bowls at all. Since 1998, only five mid−majors have appeared in a BCS bowl, but these teams have done well, going 4−1 overall. Critics point to this statistic as evidence that the level of play in mid−major conferences isn't so far behind that of the BCS conferences.
This season, Houston has become the latest mid−major that pundits and fans feel has been hindered by the BCS system. Despite a perfect 12−0 record, the Cougars, who play in Conference USA, will not make the BCS National Championship Game due to their low strength of schedule relative to SEC powerhouses, No. 1 LSU and No. 2 Alabama. Even though Alabama already lost to LSU in Tuscaloosa, Ala., the Crimson Tide will still likely be rewarded with a trip to the national title and a rematch against the undefeated Tigers, while the Cougars can only hope to be invited to a non−championship BCS bowl.
However, all the clamoring to end the BCS has not led to a plausible solution. Some argue that college football should go to a playoff system like the NFL, but how many teams would qualify for the postseason and how would these teams be selected?
Ultimately, that's the reason why the BCS has continued to exist 13 years after it was founded. Although it seems like everybody has proposed some sort of new system, nobody has come up with a specific playoff formula that would work each season. College football is structured very differently from the NFL, and because of that, there are faults in every suggested structure.
A playoff system would require a method to decide which four or eight or 16 teams deserve to make the postseason. Furthermore, the regular season would likely have to be shortened, resulting in fewer games between rivals played each season. For many college football fans, a win over their rivals is more important than a berth in a playoff system.
The BCS allows many of these rivalries to persist in spite of conference realignment, and that, in addition to the lack of a well−developed alternative, has aided its survival.
