Bowl Coalition - Demise

Demise

The Bowl Coalition's demise came about, in large part, as the result of two events that occurred in the 1994 season. First, the Southwest Conference, which had seen a marked decline in its quality of play over the past decade, announced it would dissolve after the 1995 season. Also, Notre Dame slipped from 10–1–1 in 1992 and 11–1 in 1993 to 6–4–1 in 1994. Notre Dame was still invited to the Fiesta Bowl in the 1994 season, losing 41–24 to Colorado in a game played on January 2, 1995. The sudden fall of Notre Dame led some involved in the Bowl Coalition to be concerned about the possibility of Notre Dame failing to win the minimum six games to be eligible for a bowl invitation.

Eventually the Bowl Coalition became the Bowl Alliance, breaking up the Conference tie-ins and tweaking a system that still did not include the Big Ten and the Pac 10. Coincidentally, the last year of the Bowl Coalition was the only year that its formula didn't work out at all. Penn State went 12–0 in 1994 and was a consensus runner-up in all major polls to Nebraska. However, as the Big Ten champion, it was contractually obligated to play in the Rose Bowl, where it defeated the Pac 10's Oregon. Meanwhile, Nebraska defeated Miami in the Orange Bowl and was crowned national champion by both major polls.

The Pac-10 and Big Ten conferences later joined the group in a move that still receives criticism from some fans of each conference from perceived injustices, such as Oregon's exclusion from the championship game in 2001 when it was ranked second in both polls, and USC's exclusion in 2003 despite being ranked first in both polls used.

The current BCS was extracted from the Super Alliance.