BCS Chatter

From now until early January, you will hear a lot about the BCS. I felt it prudent to provide a primer to the BCS system, just in time for your holiday parties & social gatherings.  I can assure you this talk will dominate the cocktail chatter.

What is the BCS?

While every other classification of college football employs some sort of playoff system to determine their champion, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)–the major classification–uses a bowl system.

For the 2009-2010 season, there are 34 bowl games, four of which–the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, AZ, the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, the Orange Bowl in Miami and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA–comprise the Bowl Championship Series bowl games. Additionally, a fifth game, the BCS National Championship Game, is played at one of the sites at the completion of the bowl cycle.  Each venue hosts one title game during a four year rotation.

The conference champions from the six BCS conferences (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac-10 & SEC) earn automatic bids to BCS bowl games, leaving four at large bids.

The top two teams, as determined by the BCS rankings (see below), qualify for the BCS National Championship Game (played this year at the Rose Bowl).  Additionally, the conference champions of all BCS conferences, with the exception of the Big East, have contracts with specific bowl games, unless those conference champions finish #1 or #2 in the BCS rankings and thus in the national championship game.

The Rose Bowl matches the Big 10 champion against the Pac-10 champion. The ACC champion plays in the Orange bowl, the SEC champion in the Sugar Bowl & the Big 12 champion in the Fiesta Bowl. After these spots are filled, the bowls take turns in selecting teams to fill the four “at-large” spots. This season the Orange picks first, followed by the Fiesta & Sugar.

“At-Large” Bids

If the conference champion from a non-BCS conference is ranked in the top 12 of the BCS standings, an automatic bid must be awarded to that team. If two non-BCS conference champions finish ranked in the top 12, only the higher of the two teams receives the automatic bid.

The remaining “at-large” bids are selected by the individual bowls, in the order outlined above.  Almost always the bowls make their selection based on the top ranked team available, but in the past some selections have appeared to be “business” decisions,” with the bowls selecting a team that will generate the most revenue.

BCS Rankings

The BCS Rankings are determined by using a complex formula to analyze two human polls (one voted on by the coaches, the other voted on by the media) and six computer ranking systems. This system have been widely criticized in the past, as so much of it relies on computers. Computers the average person will never see. Imagine a HAL 9000-like system as the evil genius behind the entire BCS system.

Tomorrow, we take a look at the BCS contenders and possible controversy surrounding this season’s national championship game. Later, we will look at ways of possibly correcting this obviously flawed system.

Tags: ACC, automatic qualifiers, BCS, BCS at large, BCS National Championship Game, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Bowl Championship Series, College football, Fiesta Bowl, HAL 9000, NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, non-automatic qualifiers, Orange Bowl, Pac 10, Rose Bowl, SEC, Sugar Bowl

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 10:20 pm and is filed under College football, football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.