A little history

inally, the last bowl game of the 2006 season. The BCS Championship. The winner will be crowned the national champions. Or, so some think.

There used to be the Cotton, Sugar, Rose, and Orange bowls, all played on New Year's Day. When tat day was done, football was over until September. Those bowls chose to invite teams from various conferences. Feeling left out, some cities and conferences devised their own bowls, like Peach, Bluebonnet, Gator, Fiesta — and the list goes on. Then there is television, new cable channels in need of bowl games. That demand was met with a new supply of bowl games. The prerequisite was: Get a .500 record or have Fighting Irish after your name. Of course, the new bowls did not want to be second tier. And  — so on and on it went. From all that smoke arose the BCS Championship Game.

And how does a team get invited to this game?

Unlike championships in sports like basketball the top two teams are determined by polls and computer rankings.The computer makes its choices based on strength of schedule and wins, not head-to-head competition. It is believed point differential is not included in this past season’s rating, even though; it has been in some past seasons. And only certain conferences compete for BCS ranking, which has caused some schedule changes and rearrangements of conferences.

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