Difference between revisions of "BCS National Championship Game"

Revision as of 21:46, 14 April 2014

The BCS National Championship Game has been played since the 1998 season; it was preceded by the Bowl Alliance Championship Game in 1995-1997 and the Bowl Coalition Championship Game in 1992-1994. For simplicity's sake, although the mechanics behind each different iteration of the game have been different, they are all listed here as one.

The Bowl Coalition was an arrangement between four of the (then) five major bowls (Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and Cotton Bowl), as well as the Sun Bowl, Gator Bowl, and (in 1992) the Blockbuster Bowl. The Southeastern Conference, Big Eight Conference, Southwest Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference, and Big East Conference, plus Notre Dame, were signatories to the arrangement. The champions of these five conferences, plus five at-large teams, were thrown into a pool. Traditional host bowls for conference champions were retained for the Orange, Sugar, and Cotton; however, if necessary to force a title game, teams would be released. (This was never necessary in the Bowl Coalition era, as the #1 or #2 team each year came from the ACC or Big East.) The teams were ranked by a "Bowl Poll", which combined the AP and Coaches' poll votes.

Due to the impending collapse of the Southwest Conference and a shift in conference tie-ins which came about as a result, the Bowl Coalition was scrapped in 1995 and replaced by the Bowl Alliance. The Bowl Alliance was restricted simply to the Orange, Sugar, and Fiesta. In 1995, there was no at-large available at all; following the dissolution of the Southwest Conference, one became available (with a second potentially open if Notre Dame failed to win nine games, which happened in both of the succeeding years). The host bowl for the #1 team in the Bowl Poll hosted the Bowl Alliance championship game, and if a bowl lost a conference champion as a result, they got to select an unassigned team. After the 1997 season, the Big Ten Conference and Pacific Ten Conference and the Rose Bowl finally agreed to join the process, and the BCS was formed.

The BCS has generally followed the same mechanism as the prior attempts, with two exceptions: first, the host site for the BCS National Championship Game was determined ahead of time, as the four bowls agreed to rotate. (As a result, the 2002 Rose Bowl became the first Rose Bowl in 55 years that failed to pit Big 10 vs. Pac-10 -- and, indeed, neither conference was represented in the game for the first time ever.) Beginning in 2006, the BCS National Championship Game became a separate event; it was still played at one of the four BCS bowl sites, but no longer overlapped with the existing bowl.

† - denotes overtime ‡ - Southern California's participation in the 2004 and 2005 BCS Championship Games was vacated following the declared ineligibility of USC running back Reggie Bush. The 2005 BCS title is deemed as vacant; Texas retains the 2006 title.