And so we have reached the end of the road, both for the season, and for the BCS. It goes without saying that the Bowl Championship Series has had its ups and downs. Many times it wasn’t necessarily clear to people who the top two teams were. But this much can be said: however they were determined, the BCS always had #1 play #2 in a bowl game. It didn’t always used to be that way, of course. The first season in which the AP voted on the national champion after the bowl games was 1965 (the UPI, the forerunner of the coaches’ poll, started doing this in 1974). The first season of the BCS was in 1998. In the 33 years from 1965-1997, only 10 seasons featured a bowl in which the AP #1 team played the #2 team:
1968: 1969 Rose Bowl – #1 Ohio State 27, #2 USC 16
1971: 1972 Orange Bowl – #1 Nebraska 38, #2 Alabama 6
1973: 1973 Sugar Bowl – #2 Notre Dame 24, #1 Alabama 23
1978: 1979 Sugar Bowl – #2 Alabama 14, #2 Penn State 7
1982: 1983 Sugar Bowl – #2 Penn State 27, #1 Georgia 23
1986: 1987 Fiesta Bowl – #2 Penn State 14, #1 Miami (FL) 10
1987: 1988 Orange Bowl – #2 Miami (FL) 20, #1 Oklahoma 14
1992: 1993 Sugar Bowl – #2 Alabama 34, #1 Miami (FL) 13
1993: 1994 Orange Bowl – #1 Florida State 18, #2 Nebraska 16
1995: 1996 Fiesta Bowl – #1 Nebraska 62, #2 Florida 24
The BCS will go out much as it started. The first BCS championship game, the 1999 Fiesta Bowl, featured Florida State against an SEC team (Tennessee, who won the game 23-16). The last BCS National Championship game will pit Florida State against an SEC team, Auburn. This is the fourth de facto BCS championship appearance for FSU, which is the most of any team, but their first since 2000. The Seminoles appeared in the first three championship games. Auburn’s appearance is their second in the championship game; the Tigers won 22-19 over Oregon in 2010.
More BCS facts: Alabama has the most BCS championships with three, and the SEC has the most championships with nine (and a possible tenth this year). The Big Ten has the most appearances in BCS bowl games, with 26, but the SEC has the most wins (17). In the sixteen years of the BCS, counting this year’s appearances, the school with the most appearances in the BCS bowls (Fiesta, Orange, Rose, Sugar, and the Championship Game) is Ohio State, with 10 (although one appearance was later vacated, which would tie the Buckeyes with Oklahoma at nine for the most official appearances). As both Ohio State and USC have vacated one of their six “on the field” wins in these games, these schools and Florida have the most BCS Bowl wins, with five apiece. West Virginia went to three BCS bowls and never lost (a mark Auburn can match with a win this season), the most BCS games any school went to with an undefeated mark in those games. Notre Dame went to four BCS bowls and never won. At the end of this bowl season, 51 schools will have played in at least one BCS bowl game during this time, with Baylor, Central Florida, and Michigan State serving as the final three newcomers to the party.
The BCS was also where the “little guy” could show their stuff. It began with Utah, whose 35-7 win in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl over Pittsburgh capped a 12-0 season for the Mountain West champions. But perhaps the most famous of these games was the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, where Boise State jumped onto the national scene with a 43-42 overtime win over Oklahoma that featured:
- 25 straight points by the Sooners, including an interception return with a minute to go, to erase an 18-point Boise lead (it was the second Oklahoma touchdown in 24 seconds):
- The famous “hook and lateral” play that Boise pulled off to go 50 yards for the tying touchdown with seven seconds to go:
- A 25-yard run on the first Oklahoma play in overtime by Adrian Peterson (who has since enjoyed a moderately good NFL career), for the Sooners to quickly take the lead in OT:
- A responding touchdown by Boise, the choice to go for two and the win, and a successful “Statue of Liberty” play to convert and win the game for the Broncos:
- And finally, a marriage proposal by the star Boise running back to his cheerleader girlfriend immediately after the end of the game.
It’s widely considered one of the greatest college football games of all time, and it opened the way for several other small-conference teams to step up and take a swing at the big boys. Several connected. A couple even parlayed their success into membership in a major conference (Utah is now in the Pac-12, and TCU is now in the Big XII).
The BCS has had its time, but it’s time for it to say adieu and make way for the College Football Playoff. Now the controversy will be over “who’s #4”, not “who’s #2”, so there will still be arguments, but I think most will believe that it will be a fairer judgment of the national champion. And, hey, there will be one more game of college football at the end of the year, and that’s never a bad thing, right?
Congratulations to Rocky Tide, who wins week 15 in a playoff over BEVO with 45 points. BamaHouGirl was next with 43 points, and Pachyderm and The Tradition each had 42 points.
Stay tuned for the season wrap-up!