Can someone tell me what the BCS was started for?

[BamaWing]

someone help me please

[TripleCrown9]

So there could be a unanimous champion. Not like back in the 50s and 60s when 6 or 7 teams could be "national champion", depending on which club or association or publication claimed.

[Bellsprout]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowl_Championship_Series

[Tovarich]

yup, one purpose and one purpose only, stop the split titles. It failed in 03, it might fail this year.

[nortobc]

Money Money Money

[simgamer0005]

Quote: Originally Posted by SwampStomper90

So there could be a unanimous champion. Not like back in the 50s and 60s when 6 or 7 teams could be "national champion", depending on which club or association or publication claimed.

well back then or even into the 70s, 80s and early 90s, before the BCS, there wasn't always one "national championship game". sometimes it happened with bowl alliances, but it was up to the bowls themselves to decide on matchups. sometimes you'd have 2 bowl games with national title implications. sometimes it came down to who looked more impressive in their bowl win. there were also times where there were split national champions.

it's hard to explain this now that we are living in the BCS age, but back then, despite the occasional controversy, what was nice about it was there wasn't this BCS ranking every week. one poll might have this team #1 and another poll might have that team #1, but the bowls themselves weren't hinged upon this BCS #1 vs #2 all season long. sometimes one bowl would pit #1 vs #3, and #2 would play someone else in another bowl. it didn't always get #1 vs #2, although many times it did, but it was fun because sometimes the #1 vs #3 game would end up being a great game. maybe it would be deemed the national championship, but then if #3 won and if #2 won their game, then there'd be a debate as to who was #1 following the bowls. and it was actually fun to talk about how should be champion. there wasn't this false closure that we get these days. it just seems like the BCS is so focused on pitting #1 vs #2, that they've forgotten about everything else. i think one thing is missing from college football nowadays vs how it was before the BCS is that the games themselves feel flatter. college football is missing the creative spirit and strategy from past days. And once you lose this, it's very difficult to get it back since you can't jump in a time machine. the hole is very deep and no one in control seems to recognize this to a point where they actually start climbing out of the hole. instead, they seem content to keep making the hole deeper.

I'm just not getting that big game feel anymore, like their once was, at least not when you're watching it on TV. fans used to roll up their sleeves heading into saturday. there would be days where we would watch every game and would be interested in the outcome of every game. it used to be that college football saturdays were something that everyone looked forward to. it was a time to forget about the worries of the world and just have a great time watching the sport. it was really great! these days, it seems like college football is creating more worries of the world when we have enough already. it used to be that you'd watch a great game and it was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish, and at the end, you couldn't stop thinking about how impressive the team that won was, who the hero was, or how great of a sport college football is. Now it's like, 1st down, commercial, touchdown, replay review, field goal. now the media consumes the game through control of off the field issues and rumor mills. i think it's just that the world has changed, and it's trickled down to college football. it used to feel different. i remember when you'd be watching a game towards the end of the 4th quarter, and it really felt like every second mattered. you were on the edge of your seat as a fan. (in a good way) i can't say i get that same feeling watching games these days. every referee call mattered since there was no instant replay. there was no overtime, and it felt like anything could happen at any moment. before the BCS, the college football had a certain charm to it. it remained even with the BCS for a while, but in recent years that charm has waned.

go back to the kordell stewart hail mary moment against michigan. there was such excitement down the stretch of that colorado michigan game. it was like "would colorado get one last chance"? take the ending to that game vs michigan to the ending of the michigan state wisconsin game this year. the hail mary. ask yourself which play was more "exciting"? not which was more impressive, because yeah the michigan state play was impressive, but was it as exciting as the kordell stewart hail mary? there was only mild jubilation due to having to wait for the instant replay review to confirm the touchdown. in the colorado hail mary against michigan, it was just a classic moment. there was no delay for waiting for instant replay to confirm the catch.

so yeah we have #1 vs #2, but college football didn't need to always pit #1 vs #2. it really was fine the way it was. college football had controversy then, and college football has controversy now. (like if the #2 team is separated from #3 is separated by a few decimal points and the whole bowl structure is based on that calculation) back before the BCS, there wasn't divisions within conferences or conference championship games that act like elimination games for this BCS championship game. (even though there's been times in the BCS past like in 2001 when Nebraska backed into the BCS championship game - oh right that's been tweaked) you didn't have this BCS ranking determining things like tiebreakers within divisions of conferences. it was just play the teams on your schedule, and if you played a good schedule and didn't have more than 1 loss, you usually had a chance at the national championship. as a fan, you had a better handle on what was going to happen as a result of who won the games. now it's like this team won, lets wait until the BCS ranking comes out. even though there wasn't always a unanimous national champion following the bowls, the term national champion really felt like it meant something when there was a unanimous champion. now it just all feels like a media creation with things like conference championship games. from rule changes, to expansion, to the rumor mill, we're just in a new era of college football. in many ways, it has become something completely different from what it once was. it's nobody's fault really. it's just the way the coverage and handling of the sport has evolved over time.

[Pokes]

Nebraska got butthurt and everyone got tired of Scott Frost crying.

[Amoo316]

It was created to stop things like a #1 Michigan going to the Rose Bowl and beat #7 UCLA, meanwhile #2 Miami played #6 FSU in the Orange Bowl.

The bowl allegiances that you see today were part of the problem, and still are to a certain point, but it was created to put the two top teams in the same game.

Simplest explanation I can give.