The Current BCS System

College football is one of America's most popular sports, for good reason. The athletes play with a real desire to win, they don't even get paid for heavens sakes! Enormous stadiums get packed with screaming fans who eat, sleep, and breathe college football. Thousands of fans show up early to stadiums on game day to talk football and eat some good food while tailgating around their cars. All in the name of college football.
How could a sport so amazing and full of passion be so corrupt? The answer lies in three little letters BCS. Before I continue with this blog to show just how corrupt the BCS is, why don't we learn a little about this system.
The BCS (Bowl Championship Series) is made up of 6 'power conferences' (Pac-10, Big East, SEC, Big XII, ACC, and Big 10). The winners of each of these conferences gets an automatic bid to one of the major BCS bowls (Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta).
Each team in college football plays 12 regular season games. Starting at week 1 there are 2 polls released to help rank the top 25 teams in the country. These polls are the USA Today/Coaches Poll and the AP poll. The rankings of these polls are determined by sportswriters, coaches, former players, etc. These are the 'human polls'.
On week 5 the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) releases its first rankings. This ranking includes three components: USA Today Coaches Poll, Harris Interactive College Football Poll and an average of six computer rankings. Each component counts for one-third of a team's overall BCS score in the BCS Standings. Confused yet? Me too.
At the end of the regular season the BCS computers decide who gets to play in the National Championship for all the glory, while the winners of the power conferences are sent to the four big bowl games.
Hopefully this brief explanation will give the reader an idea of how the college national championship is won, or should I say picked.....