Bowl Championship Series - History Leading To Creation of The BCS

History Leading To Creation of The BCS

The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) is the only NCAA-sponsored sport without an organized tournament to determine its champion. Instead, the postseason has historically consisted of individual bowl games.

The bowl system began in 1902 with the East-West game in Pasadena, California. Held on New Year's Day in conjunction with the Tournament of Roses, this was an exhibition game between a highly rated team from the west coast and a team east of the Mississippi River. In this first game, representing the East, the University of Michigan Wolverines, No. 1 and undefeated, having not been so much as scored upon all season, defeated the West's Stanford University Indians (later renamed Cardinal) by a score of 49–0. The lopsided score led to Stanford calling for an end to the game during the third quarter, and also led to the post-season football game not being played again until 1916.

This was an ideal time for a postseason game, as fans could take off work or school during this holiday period to travel to the game. The game was renamed the Rose Bowl in the late 1920s due to the shape of the new stadium built in Pasadena. By the 1930s, the Cotton Bowl Classic, Orange Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl were also held on January 1 to showcase teams from other regions of the country.

By the 1940s, college football conferences began signing contracts that tied their championship team to a particular bowl. In 1947, the Big Ten Conference and the Pacific Coast Conference, a forerunner of today's Pacific-12 Conference, agreed to commit their champions to play in the Rose Bowl every year, an agreement that continued under the BCS. This system raised the possibility that the two top-ranked teams in the final poll would not play each other in a bowl game. Indeed, since the AP began releasing its final poll after the bowl games in 1968 the two top-ranked teams in the final regular-season AP Poll had only played each other in a bowl six times until special bowl arrangements began in 1992. Under the circumstances, it was somewhat routine to have a split national championships with the Coaches Poll. This has occurred on eleven different occasions (1954, 1957, 1965, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1978, 1990, 1991, 1997, 2003) since the two polls came to co-exist.

In 1991, the University of Miami Hurricanes and the University of Washington Huskies were considered the strongest teams in the nation. Since the Huskies were locked into the Rose Bowl as the Pacific 10 Conference champion against Big Ten champion Michigan, they could not play Miami, who played in the Orange Bowl. Both teams won their bowl games convincingly and shared the national championship, Miami winning the Associated Press poll and Washington earning the top spot in the Coaches Poll. A split national championship has happened on several occasions since then as well (1997, 2003). (See: NCAA Division I FBS National Football Championship for a compilation of past "national champions" since 1869.)

Other teams have won the national championship despite playing presumably weaker schedules than other championship contenders. The BYU Cougars ended the 1984 season as the only undefeated and untied team in the nation as a member of the Western Athletic Conference. The Cougars opened the season with a 20–14 victory over No. 3 Pittsburgh, and won the Holiday Bowl against a 6–5 Michigan team that had been ranked as high as No. 2 that season. As the No. 4 ranked team at the end of the regular season, the University of Washington Huskies were offered a slot against BYU in the Holiday Bowl; Washington declined, preferring instead to play in the more lucrative Orange Bowl where they beat No. 2 Oklahoma to complete a Pac-10 sweep of New Year's Day bowls (USC Rose and UCLA Fiesta). Washington (11–1) was voted No. 2 following the bowl season with their only blemish a late season loss at Pac-10 champ USC. Coupled with the 1983 season of 11 consecutive wins, BYU finished the 1984 season with a 24 game winning streak and was a near-unanimous choice as national champion in final polls.

To address these problems, five conferences, six bowl games, and leading independent Notre Dame joined forces to create the Bowl Coalition, which was intended to force a de facto "national championship game" between the top two teams. By entirely excluding all the other conferences, the Bowl Coalition also made it impossible for a non-Bowl Coalition team to win a national championship. This system was in place from the 1992 season through the 1994 season. While traditional tie-ins between conferences and bowls remained, a team would be released to play in another bowl if it was necessary to force a championship game. However, this system did not include the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions, as both were obligated to play in the Rose Bowl. The Coalition made several unsuccessful attempts to get the Tournament of Roses Association, which operates the Rose Bowl, to release the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions if necessary to force a championship game. In 1994, undefeated Penn State, from the Big Ten, played Oregon in the Rose Bowl while undefeated Nebraska played Miami in the Orange Bowl. In a system that paired top-ranked teams, Penn State would have played Nebraska for the national championship.

The Bowl Coalition was restructured into the Bowl Alliance for the 1995 season, involving five conferences (reduced to four for the 1996 season) and three bowls (Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange). The championship game rotated among these three bowls. It still did not, however, include the Pac-10 or Big Ten champions, the Rose Bowl, or any non-Bowl Alliance teams.

After a protracted round of negotiations, the Bowl Alliance was reformed into the Bowl Championship Series for the 1998 season; former Southeastern Conference commissioner Roy Kramer is considered to be the "father" of the BCS. The Tournament of Roses Association agreed to release the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions if it was necessary to force a national championship game. In return, the Rose Bowl was added to the yearly national championship rotation, and the game was able to keep its coveted exclusive TV time slot on the afternoon of New Year's Day. However, beginning with the 2006 season, the BCS National Championship Game became a separate event played at the same site as a host bowl a week following New Year's Day. The new Bowl Championship Series not only included the Big Ten and the Pac-10 conferences but also teams from mid-major conferences, based on performance.

No mid-major however, or team from any conference outside of the 6 aligned conferences, has ever played in the BCS Championship Game, causing increasing controversy. This controversy has become even more intense in light of the 4–1 record that mid-major teams have against teams from the 6 automatic qualifying conferences in the BCS Bowl games they have been allowed to play in. The performances and perfect record of Texas Christian University in the 2010 season, and Boise State University in the season prior to that has also fueled the controversy surrounding the perceived inequalities that the BCS seems to perpetuate (see BCS Controversies below or in this more detailed separate article). However, little headway has been made to institute an alternative system like a playoff tournament, given the entrenched vested economic interests in the various bowls.