The ABCs of the BCS - college football's Bowl Championship Series

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Sept, 2001 by Wayne M. Barrett

"HE WHO LOSES LAST, LOSES WORST," is how one Florida State University fan assesses the college football rankings. Adds another Seminole supporter, "Everyone is always complaining that this is the only sport where the championship is not won on the field, but is that necessarily a bad thing?"

In other words, here we go again. For the next four months or so, until just after New Years, the battle will rage--on paper and on the field--as to who is No. I (as well as numbers 2 to 25) in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. And in what has become an annual rite during the last decade, the rules that determine what is no longer supposed to be a "mythical" champion have changed.

The Bowl Championship Series, now entering its fourth season, this year will include a quality-win component which will award bonus points for beating a top-15 team in the BCS rankings. Also, there will be less importance given to margin of victory.

"They're looking for a perfect system, and there is no perfect system," says the first Florida State fan. Adds the second, "Every time there's a controversy, they stick in a new rule."

The controversy last year was that Florida State went to the championship game (where the Seminoles lost to the undefeated University of Oklahoma), instead of the University of Miami. Each had only one loss, but Florida State's was to Miami. Still, the Seminoles were ranked second by the BCS at the end of the regular season--the Sooners were No. 1--so they automatically went to the title game. Had this year's new rules been in effect last season, Miami, not Florida State, likely would have faced Oklahoma.

(Since 1993, coach Bobby Bowden's Seminoles have been to the national championship game five times, including the last three, winning twice. They've been to a major bowl every year since 1991, and have enjoyed 14 straight 10-win and top-5 seasons, thus the reason for this columnist's BCS consultation with the two biggest Seminole fanatics this side of the Mason-Dixon line).

"Actually," says the first Florida State fan, "what killed Miami was strength of schedule. These schedules are planned four to five years in advance. So Miami put McNeese State on its schedule [when running up the score, even against lesser opponents, helped a team's rankings] before there was a BCS ranking system."

And that's bad why? "Because the strength of schedule component--which has a million quirks in it that are way too complicated to explain--really frowns on any opponent that isn't Division I-A. McNeese State is Division I-AA. Now, if you lose to a I-AA team, forget it; that's real bad. But even if you beat a good I-AA team [which McNeese State is], it's not as good as beating a terrible Division I-A team like Army." [The U.S. Military Academy had a 1-10 record last year.]

In a nutshell, the BCS rankings are based on four components: the average of the two traditional polls (writers and coaches); average ranking of eight different computer polls (two of which changed this year as the BCS replaced a pair that relied too heavily on margin of victory); strength of schedule (which is based on an opponent's final record, not its record at the time you played; the same will hold true in the new bonus points amendment); and number of losses. The BCS encompasses the/bur major bowls: Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta. The national championship game (Jan. 3, 2002), pitting No. 1 against No. 2, rotates among these four. This season it's the Rose Bowl's turn. Six conference champs--Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big East, Big 10 (which has 11 teams; go figure), Big 12, Pacific 10, and Southeast Conference--receive automatic BCS bids. Any other conference champ that finishes in the top 6 in the BCS rankings gets an automatic bid. The remaining spot is filled by a wild-card selection (or two wild cards if there is no "outside" conference champ that meets the top-6 criteria). The wild card(s) must have at least nine victories and a top-12 BCS ranking. Notre Dame, the nation's most popular (read, TV money) independent, has to be given automatic first consideration if it meets the wild card criteria.

The BCS was created to replace the Bowl Alliance, which replaced the Bowl Coalition, which replaced the age-old system of relying on the AP and UPI polls to determine a national champion. The trouble with the exclusive use of the AP (writers) and UPI (coaches) polls to crown a champion was they were too subjective; certain conferences and bowls had inflexible tie-ins that could hamper getting the best matchups; and, in order to secure the more popular teams, bowl bids were going out way too early.

The Bowl Coalition didn't do away with tie-ins--for example, the winner of the Southeast Conference had to go to the Sugar Bowl; the winner of the Big 8 (now Big 12) had to go to the Orange Bowl--but it did hold off bowl bids until after the regular season ended, although there surely were some "early" backroom deals struck that sometimes muddled the process.

The Bowl Alliance did away with the tie-ins, but like the Coalition, couldn't get the Rose Bowl to join the party, and thus couldn't guarantee No. 1 vs. No. 2. Sure enough, in 1994, undefeated No. 1 Nebraska didn't face unbeaten No. 2 Pennsylvania State University because the Nittany Lions, as Big 10 champ, were obligated to play the Pac 10 champ in the Rose Bowl. Both Nebraska and Penn State won their bowls, and finished first-second in the polls without ever having their dream matchup.