Bowl Championship Series controversies
The Bowl Championship Series was a selection system used between 1998 and 2013 that replaced the previously similarly more controversial Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance that was used between 1992 and 1997 and was replaced by the College Football Playoff in 2014. The selection system was designed, through polls and computer statistics, to determine a No. 1 and No. 2 ranked team in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. After the final polls, the two top teams were chosen to play in the BCS National Championship Game which determined the BCS national champion team, but not the champion team for independent voting systems. This format was intended to be "bowl-centered" rather than a traditional playoff system, since numerous FBS Conferences had expressed their unwillingness to participate in a play-off system. However, due to the unique and often esoteric nature of the BCS format, there had been controversy as to which two teams should play for the national championship and which teams should play in the four other BCS bowl games. In this selection process, the BCS was often criticized for conference favoritism, its inequality of access for teams in non-Automatic Qualifying Conferences, and perceived monopolistic, "profit-centered" motives. In terms of this last concern, Congress explored the possibility on more than one occasion of holding hearings to determine the legality of the BCS under the terms of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and the United States Justice Department also periodically announced interest in investigating the BCS for similar reasons.
Overview
A survey conducted in 2009 at the Quinnipiac University found that 63% of individuals interested in college football preferred a playoff system to the BCS, while only 26 percent supported the BCS as status quo. Arguments from critics typically centered on the validity of BCS national championship pairings and its designated National Champions. Many critics focused strictly on the BCS methodology itself, which employed subjective voting assessments, while others noted the ability for undefeated teams to finish seasons without an opportunity to play the national championship game. For example, in the last six seasons of Division I FBS football, there have been more undefeated non-BCS champions than undefeated BCS champions. Other criticisms involved discrepancies in the allocation of monetary resources from BCS games, as well as the determination of non-championship BCS game participants, which need not comply with the BCS rankings themselves. Critics note that other sports and divisions of college football complete seasons without disputed national champions which critics attribute to the use of the playoff format.Critics argued that increasing the number of teams would increase the validity of team comparisons in conferences, which do not compete with one another during the regular season; teams typically only play three or four non-conference games, as the result of pre-determined schedules. BCS proponents viewed the possibility of expanded competitive post-season opportunities as negative. The primary delivery of this objection was a slippery slope argument rhetorically known as bracket creep. Implementation of a playoff system, proponents objected, would lead to other, more serious consequences, such as the diminished value of the regular season, diminished value of the bowl tradition, or damage to the collegiate academic calendar year. Critics, including Republican congressman Joe Barton, were quick to respond to these red herrings, noting that teams from non-AQ conferences are already excluded from the national championship and their inclusion would only improve the meaningfulness of the regular season.
A further criticism of the system was the institutionalized bias towards the six AQ conferences and Notre Dame, an independent team in football, at the deliberate expense of the five Division I-A/FBS BCS non-AQ conferences. During the BCS era, 11 non-AQ conference Division I-A/FBS teams finished the regular season undefeated without being given an opportunity to play in the national championship game. Another problem was presented when more than one non-AQ conference team had an undefeated schedule in the same season. In 2008, Utah and Boise State both went undefeated. However, the BCS rules only provided for one automatic at-large BCS berth from teams in the non-AQ conferences. Therefore, a two-loss Ohio State team was chosen over Boise State for the Fiesta Bowl, and Boise State ended up outside of the BCS games. This problem arose again in 2009, with Boise State and TCU undefeated. The final BCS rankings saw TCU at No. 4 and Boise State at No. 6, which meant that only TCU was guaranteed a slot in the BCS bowls. However, the Broncos were not left out of the BCS bowl party this time, as they were chosen to face TCU in the Fiesta Bowl. Nonetheless, both Boise State and TCU finished the regular season unbeaten – in the case of Boise State, for the second year in a row, the fourth year out of six, and in 2006 finished as the only undefeated team in the nation – and never had a chance to play for a BCS national title.
Since, however, teams from non-AQ conferences play what are considered generally easier schedules than teams from AQ conferences, it is unclear whether this "bias" is merely a penalty based on schedule strength that can also apply to AQ conference teams. A rejoinder would be that teams from non-AQ conferences only have so much control over their schedules, creating the possibility that such a team might in fact be one of the two best teams in the country, and might also have made a good-faith effort to play a challenging schedule, but might still be excluded from the national championship game. This could happen due to BCS teams turning them down in fear of an upset, or scheduling a traditionally strong school who turned out to be having a weak year. The 2009 TCU team is a counterexample, however. They defeated both Virginia and Clemson on the road, and won the rest of their games by an average of 31 points. They received a BCS bid to play against Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl. Critics, though, argue that TCU may have been more deserving to play Alabama in the BCS Championship Game than Texas. With wins over Clemson, BYU, and Utah, some journalists, including Football Writers Association of America Past-President Dennis Dodd, have cited the 2009 TCU team as an example of a non-AQ team, excluded from consideration for the national championship in spite of their performance against strong competition.
Teams from non-AQ conferences have been successful in BCS bowl games, but this has not affected the position of proponents that non-AQ conference teams are not on an equal level with teams from automatic qualifying conferences. Such "BCS Busters" went 5–3 in BCS bowl games, and 4–2 in BCS bowls against teams from AQ conferences: Utah won both its BCS bowl appearances in 2004 and 2008, Boise State won both of its appearances in 2006 and 2009, while TCU won a BCS bowl in 2010 after losing one in 2009. Northern Illinois lost the Orange Bowl to a tough Florida State team 31–10. In the previous year the Clemson Tigers lost by 37 points to the West Virginia Mountaineers, with lower attendance and television ratings. The only team that could reasonably be described as "playing a weak schedule and then being exposed by a BCS team" is the 2007 Hawaii team, which was defeated by Georgia in the 2008 Sugar Bowl.
Another concern with the BCS was that a team could fail to win its conference championship, but still play in the BCS championship game. This happened in the 2001, 2003, and 2011 seasons. In 2001 Nebraska played Miami in the BCS championship game, despite a blowout loss to Colorado in the Cornhuskers' final regular-season game which kept them out of the Big 12 Conference Championship game. In 2003 Oklahoma played LSU despite losing to Kansas State 35–7 in the Big 12 Conference title game. In 2011, Alabama was selected to play LSU in a rematch between the two programs despite losing the earlier matchup and not winning their division, let alone their conference. This entails that a team that could not even win their conference title is awarded the title of best team in the nation, despite the obvious presence of a better squad within their own conference, as was the case with Alabama in 2011. A rejoinder is that these situations actually reflect a virtue of the BCS system, which rewards teams for their performance throughout the entire season, thereby reinforcing the notion that, in college football, every game matters.
A similar criticism was that a team with similar or better arguments to another team can be left out of the BCS despite beating the other team. This happened between Miami and Florida State University in 2000, where Miami beat Florida St. yet Florida St. went to the National Championship Game. The University of Washington also beat Miami and finished with an 11–1 record, further adding to the controversy. In 2008, the situation was repeated when one-loss Oklahoma was selected for the BCS Championship over one-loss Texas, which beat the Sooners during the regular season. Although not related to the title game, after the 2007 season, Kansas was chosen to go to the BCS Orange Bowl, even though they had lost to Missouri. This, among other games in history, illustrates that late season losses are often more injurious than early season losses.
Finally, critics argued that a team could win a weak conference and be awarded an automatic berth over at-large teams that were perceived to be more deserving. Most of this criticism centered on the Big East after losing Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College to the ACC. In 2004, No. 21 Pittsburgh won the Big East with a record of 8–3 and was awarded an automatic bid because they won their conference at the expense of several runner-up teams with much better rankings, such as No. 5 California, No. 7 Georgia, and No. 8 Virginia Tech, that were left out. In 2008, undefeated No. 9 Boise State and No. 11 TCU were left out of the BCS while No. 19 Virginia Tech, winner of the ACC was given a BCS bowl berth. In 2010, Connecticut won the Big East with a record of 8–4 and was awarded an automatic bid to the Fiesta Bowl despite not being ranked in the top 25 of the BCS standings. As a result, the Mountain West Conference campaigned to receive an automatic bid while there were calls for the Big East to lose its AQ status. Another way to fix this problem would be to mandate that if a conference champion finishes with a low ranking that they forfeit their automatic bid, and get put into the pool of "at large" teams that the BCS can choose from. Thus, a higher ranked non-AQ team could be selected by a bowl game. Another solution to this problem that was heavily considered prior to the cessation of the BCS was to eliminate AQ status and allow the bowl committees to select the participants they want provided that the school has a sufficiently high BCS ranking so that no BCS bowl would be forced to take a low-ranking AQ conference champion. This would also allow a third team from the same conference to participate in a BCS bowl, something that is prohibited by the current rules.