NCAA Division 1 College Football's Bowl Championship Series (BCS)

In a sporting event, shouldn't each team play by the same rules? Shouldn't each competitor have an equal chance of winning? Without these elements, many would consider a sporting event unfair. For sports, we envision an equal playing field where the most talented, dedicated, and luckiest defeat their noble competitors. Please keep this principle in mind as you continue reading. Unfortunately, college football strays from this vision.

College football has struggled for years with the problem of choosing its champion. Things are especially difficult because many teams compete for one National Championship, 117 teams to be exact. However, college football coaches generally agree that their players are only physically able to play 12 or 13 games per season. This means that in a given year, each team will only play around 10% of the teams they are competing against. How do you pick a champion when most teams never even compete against each other?

For years, the national champion had been chosen by the Coaches' Poll and the AP Media Poll. In these polls, coaches and media experts rank the top 25 teams. This poll is subjective, however, since selectors must rank teams with similar win-loss records. Sometimes they have to rank multiple teams with perfect records, all wins and no losses. The polling method works well when one team clearly excels over the other 116 teams. The selectors' have an especially easy job when only one team has a perfect season. However, the polls run into a serious problem when multiple teams have perfect seasons. No matter whom the selectors choose, the undefeated team not chosen can claim that it deserves the National Championship.

This happened in 1997. Both the University of Michigan and the University of Nebraska had undefeated seasons. Unfortunately, the two teams never played each other. Wouldn't it be terribly unfair to deem one team better than another when both had perfect seasons? Luckily, the AP Poll chose Michigan and the Coaches' Poll chose Nebraska, allowing the two teams to share the National Championship. The poll system caught a break that year, but many people would have been enraged if either team won both polls, barring the other team from its share of the National Championship. If three or more teams had perfect seasons, then even more teams could have been unfairly barred from the National Championship.

To fix this problem, college football instituted a new system, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The BCS uses a more extensive rating system to select the National Champion, combining the original polls with a computer ranking. Arguably, the computer ranking diminishes the subjective human element of the selection process. However, the polls still play a major role in the rankings. Using these new rankings, the BCS creates a championship game between the two top ranked teams. The winner of this game is crowned as the National Champion.

If the BCS were in place in 1997, Michigan and Nebraska would have played against each other in the National Championship game. Most would prefer seeing the two teams play against each other instead sharing of sharing the National Championship. Additionally, the BCS created three other prestigious BCS Bowl Games. As a result, revenues have skyrocketed. Because the BCS increases revenues and guarantees the top ranked teams will play against each other in an exciting National Championship Game, many consider it an improvement over the original polling system.

However, the BCS is only better for a select few. With more money and hyped games, fans generally want to watch popular, well-known teams. As a result, small teams find themselves shut out, or at given a serious disadvantage.

Eight teams get to play in the four games (National Championship and three BCS Bowls) and earn the extra revenue. However, 6 of these 8 spots are guaranteed to the champions of the 6 largest conferences. The other 2 are chosen at-large from the rest of the teams, based largely on rankings. These at-large bowl bids were designed to include schools outside of the 6 major conferences. However, these schools are rarely included.

It seems that the BCS selects larger, more popular schools that have more fans and will draw more spectators. This lead to more revenue. As Tulane President Scott Cowen points out, "Of 117 schools [...], 53 have little or no hope of participating even in one of the top four bowl games." Cowen implies that only the 64 teams who belong to the 6 major conferences have a real chance at playing in the National Championship game.

Those at large, football powerhouses remain relatively unaffected by this drawback. However this isn't the case for schools like Tulane University. Tulane is a private school located in New Orleans with only 12,000 students. Tulane is a member of Conference USA, one of the smaller conferences excluded from the BCS. In 1998, Tulane had its first perfect season since 1929. Only one other team, Tennessee, also had a perfect season that year. If we were to follow our original fair play principle where every team plays by the same rules and has an equal chance of winning, these two undefeated teams would play each other for the National Championship. This of course did not happen. Despite Tulane's perfect season, the BCS ranked Tulane 10th and shut Tulane out of all 4 BCS games. Florida State, a major team who had lost 1 game, took Tulane's spot in the National Championship. Major schools Florida and Texas A&M, who both lost 2 games, took Tulane's spot in the other BCS games, while Syracuse took the final BCS spot despite losing 3 games out of 11. Syracuse lost more than a quarter of its games! Meanwhile, small schools Arizona, Kansas State, Air Force, and Marshall each only lost 1 game, but were not invited to the BCS games. These teams not only lost the opportunity to play in one of the prestigious BCS games, they also lost millions of dollars in revenue.

Tulane is not an isolated instance. Marshall University, another small non-BCS school, had a perfect 12-0 season the following year. Marshall finished 12th in the BCS rankings and was barred from the BCS Bowl Games.

Now many will argue that Tulane did not have the most talented team in the nation and did not deserve to play against the major teams. They argue that Tulane benefited from an easy schedule against other weak, small schools. In all honesty, these critics are probably correct. But how can we know? Two of these teams have had perfect seasons in only five years. Even if these teams would lose to the major teams 99 times out of 100, one team still would win. Every David has his chance, albeit small, to beat Goliath. But these teams are never given a chance. What more can we ask of these teams beyond winning all of their games?

Imagine being a player on one of the non-BCS teams. Most likely you aren't one of the top players, but you worked especially hard to earn a spot on a college football team. Unlike the players at the prestigious football schools, you will never have the chance play professional football. You are using your football scholarship to earn a college degree. You may not have as much talent as those top players, but you feel you have more heart.

After years of hard work, you now lead your team as captain in your last season of football. You have a great season, winning every game. In some games your team used its superior talent to dominate other teams. In the close games, your team never gave up and fought its way to victory. Everything seemed to go your way. In fact, you had a perfect season. When you are playing your best, you think you can beat anybody.

You receive a lot of media attention because of your fantastic record. A few praise your team and its efforts. However, most claim that your team would lose if it were to play any of the major schools. You know this isn't true. You know that small college basketball teams get the chance to play against the major schools and often beat them. Many of these teams have defeated multiple major schools to earn National Championships. Why aren't you given the same opportunity?

If you win your last scheduled game, yours will be the only undefeated team, the only team to have a "perfect" season. In one of the most memorable games of your life, you pull off an amazing win and finish undefeated. You know your team will be chosen to play in the National Championship. You even feel you have an advantage in the National Championship game because your team remains undefeated while every other team has lost. Your heart sinks into your stomach when you learn that you weren't selected. The BCS kept you out of the big games; snubbed your National Championship dreams. In your place is Ohio State University, who won the National Championship last year.

You go on to easily win your consolation bowl game. In the end, you haven't won the National Championship, but you haven't lost the National Championship either. You are in some sort of BCS limbo. From the start, you were never given the chance to win.

Undoubtedly, any system that discriminates against 53 of 117 of its members defies our vision of fairness. But who is to blame for this problem in the BCS? Why do 53 teams lose the battle for the National Championship before they step onto the field? The problem lies in the polls. If the pollsters were willing to rank Tulane or Marshall at the top, then these teams would be able to play in the National Championship game. However, we've seen that these teams never rise far enough in the polls. The subjective aspect of the BCS shuts out the small teams.

The BCS fixes the 1997 problem; the top two teams will always play each other. It improves greatly on the original poll system. The BCS is better, but not better for everyone. Tulane President Scott Cowen sums things up nicely when he says the BCS "has the characteristics of a cartel." The BCS is flawed because it allows media and coaches to determine the victor. Football is the only college sport where non-competitors choose the champion. It is the only sport that does not choose its champion through on-field competition. The BCS should be changed to a system that lets every team earn its championship, not a system that chooses its champion from a privileged group. Until then, the National Champion will only reign over 64 teams, not 117 as the BCS claims.