BCS History

The Bowl Championship Series, now in its 12th year of existence, was designed to preserve and nurture the rich traditions and many benefits of the bowl system, while providing a means for the nation’s two highest-ranked teams to play annually in a bowl game.

To understand how the BCS developed, it is necessary to understand something of the history of the bowl system. Although the bowl system has existed since 1902 (even predating the creation of the NCAA), the bowls blossomed after World War II.As the bowl games grew over the years, a number of conferences individually developed close relationships with certain bowl committees and began to send their champions to a particular bowl game annually. The most noted of these relationships is the arrangement between the Big Ten and Pacific-10 Conferences and the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association for the Rose Bowl game. Also, for example, the Southeastern, Big Eight, and Southwest Conferences developed similar relationships with the Sugar, Orange, and Cotton Bowls, respectively.

These relationships proved valuable to both the individual bowls and the conferences. A berth in a particular bowl became the reward for a conference championship. The close ties between institutions in a conference and a particular bowl encouraged fans to travel to the host city and helped the bowls develop solid economic bases, from which they have supported an abundance of educational, charitable, and community initiatives. By the early 1990s, conference-bowl affiliation arrangements had become a vital part of college football. They have proved to be so valuable and useful that they extend well beyond the five BCS bowls and encompass teams other than conference champions. Virtually all of the existing bowl games have individually negotiated affiliation agreements with particular conferences.

Before the BCS, however, the prevalence of affiliation arrangements between conference and bowls usually precluded match ups between the No. 1 and No. 2 teams because the champion of one conference might be committed to participate in one bowl game and the champion of another conference might be committed to play in another game. Only eight times from 1946 until 1991 were the bowls able to pair the two highest-ranked teams.

That limitation of the bowl system became more pronounced in the early 1990s because there was substantial conference expansion. Before then, a number of highly regarded programs played as independents and could participate in any bowl game that invited them. In the early 1990s, however, all of those teams except Notre Dame became members of conferences. And so the ability of any single bowl committee to pair the top two teams declined.

To increase the chances of a match up between the top two teams in a bowl game, in 1992 several conferences and Notre Dame, along with four bowl committees, developed the Bowl Coalition arrangement. The Coalition did not alter any of the then-existing conference-bowl affiliation arrangements. Instead, the Coalition’s major innovation was the creation of a selection procedure among four bowl games – the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar Bowls – to enhance the chances that the two highest-ranked teams would meet. The Gator and John Hancock (Sun) Bowls later joined the Coalition arrangement.

Given its narrow parameters and aims, the Coalition arrangement was quite successful, pairing the top two teams in the nation in a bowl game in two of the three years it existed. But it had limitations. It could not, for example, pair the champions of the Big Eight and SEC in any bowl game. Likewise, because neither the Big Ten nor the Pac-10 champions participated in the Coalition, the arrangement could not pair either of those teams with an opponent from another conference. It was clear, therefore, that the Coalition arrangement, while helpful, could never guarantee a match up between No. 1 and No. 2. The Coalition agreement ended after the bowl games of January 1995 at the same time that a number of the existing conference and bowl affiliation agreements expired. The end of the affiliation arrangements presented another opportunity to increase the likelihood of a season-ending bowl pairing of the top two teams. The result was the Bowl Alliance.

The Alliance arrangement involved the champions of the ACC, Big East, Big 12, and SEC, and three bowl games – the Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar Bowls. The Alliance existed for three years--covering the bowl games of January 1996, 1997, and 1998. Like the Coalition arrangement, the Alliance created a selection structure for the participating bowls. Each year one of the three Alliance bowls had the right to select the first two teams from a pool of eligible teams consisting of Notre Dame; the champions of the ACC, Big East, Big 12, and SEC; other conference champions if those conferences chose to participate in the arrangement, and highly ranked non-champions from any conference. None of the participating conference champions were committed to play in any bowl game as they had been in the past under the conference bowl affiliation arrangements. This selection procedure permitted the Alliance bowls to match conference champions in games that would not have been played under the previous conference-bowl affiliation arrangements. For example, after the 1995 regular season, the Alliance arrangement created a national championship game between the only two unbeaten teams in the nation: Nebraska, champion of the Big Eight, and Florida, champion of the SEC.

Like the Coalition, however, the Alliance had limitations. Neither the Big Ten nor the Pac-10 champion was committed to play in one of the Alliance bowls because of their conferences’ relationship with the Rose Bowl game. As the Alliance arrangement neared its end, it became clear that any attempt to further increase the likelihood of creating an annual national championship game would have to include the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions.

In 1996, several conferences began discussions about the possibility of integrating the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions into a bowl arrangement that would allow for an annual pairing of the top two teams in the nation. To make that arrangement possible, the Big Ten, Pac-10, and Rose Bowl game agreed that under certain circumstances, the Big Ten and/or Pac-10 champions would not play their traditional game in Pasadena on New Year’s Day. Similarly, the Rose Bowl game agreed to host a national championship game in rotation with the other bowls. The three bowls that had participated in the Alliance arrangement enthusiastically supported the new approach, and thus was born the BCS. Beginning in 1999, the bowl system could, for the fi rst time in its nearly 100-year history, promise the fans of college football an annual pairing between the top two teams.

A fifth BCS game was added to the yearly rotation beginning with the bowl games of January 2007. Each bowl game, during a four-year period, plays host to its own game as well as to the BCS National Championship Game, with roughly a week between games.

The BCS arrangement has provided numerous benefits to college football and its fans. It has paired teams in national championship games that would not have been possible under the bowl arrangements existing before its creation. It has enhanced the regular season. It has contributed to the growth of the bowl system in general, to the benefit of every Football Bowl Subdivision school. And it has enhanced opportunities for teams from all Bowl Subdivision conferences to participate in the Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar Bowls.