Bowl Coalition - Background

Background

The Bowl Coalition consisted of five conferences—the SEC, Big 8, SWC, ACC and Big East--independent Notre Dame, and six bowl games—the Orange, Sugar, Cotton, Fiesta, Gator and John Hancock bowls.

Under the agreement, bowl bids would be extended to the five member conference champions plus five at-large teams. The at-large teams would come from a pool of the five member conferences' runners-up, the runner-up of the Pac-10, the SEC's third-place team (since the SEC started playing a championship game in the 1992 season; and its second-place team was tied to the Florida Citrus Bowl) and Notre Dame. The Orange, Sugar, Cotton and Fiesta Bowls were "Tier 1 Bowls" under the Coalition agreement, and the Gator and John Hancock Sun were "Tier 2 Bowls." The Orange, Sugar and Cotton bowls retained their long-standing agreements to invite the Big 8, SEC and SWC champs, respectively. However, the SEC, Big 8 and SWC champs would be released to play in another bowl if it was necessary to force a "title game." This did not happen in any of the three years, as either the Big East or ACC champion qualified for the championship in those years.

The top “host” team played the top “at-large” team in the host team’s affiliated bowl. Slots for the games were chosen by the "Bowl Poll," in which the points from the AP and Coaches polls were combined. If the top 2 teams were both “at-large”, then the Fiesta would have hosted the "title game." The #3 team from the SEC hosted the Gator Bowl. The American Football Coaches Association agreed to rank the winner of the Bowl Coalition's "title game" as the top team in the final Coaches' Poll, thus guaranteeing the winner of the game at least a share of the national championship.

The formula worked perfectly in its first year. Miami, the Big East champion, was ranked first in both polls, while SEC champ Alabama was ranked second. Miami was free to choose a bowl, so it opted to play Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.