$15.00 +s/h Shop USA Sports - 2009 World Series Program
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Official 2009 World Series Program
$15.00 +s/h Shop USA Sports - 2009 World Series Program
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Derek Jeter Hit Record Memorabilia
Derek Jeter sets New York Yankees all time hitting record with hit number 2772. The record was previously held by Lou Gehrig. Get official licensed sports memorabilia commemorating this historic event at Shop USA Sports
Monday, August 24, 2009
The History of the World Series
Before the birth of the World Series in 1903, there were other postseason championships that took place as early as 1884. Although they are not officially recognized as part of World Series history, they provide a basis for the establishment of what has become recognized as "The Fall Classic".
The Fall Classic has provided us with many magical moments. The first World Series, in 1903, was a best-of-nine affair arranged between the champions of the older National League (founded in 1876) and the American League. The AL's Boston Pilgrims upset the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5 games to 3.
The 1904 NL champion New York Giants refused to play Boston the following year, so there was no Series. But the league presidents ironed out their differences, and the Series resumed in 1905, when the Giants agreed to play Philadelphia in a best-of-seven game series.
Since then the World Series has followed the best-of-seven format, except from 1919-21, when it returned briefly to best-of-nine.
Facts About The Rawlings World Series Baseball (ROMLB) Supplied exclusively by Rawlings® for over a quarter-century, each ball comes carefully crafted, weighed, measured, tested, inspected, and re-inspected. 5 ounces and 108 v-shaped stitches of absolute perfection.
Rawlings Sporting Goods started manufacturing baseballs in 1955 when Spalding bought it out. Both the American and National League balls were made by the same company though the American League balls were stamped with the Rawlings name and the National League balls were stamped with the Spalding name. In 1968 Spalding was forced to sell Rawlings after an anti-trust investigation but continued to contract Rawlings to manufacture baseballs until 1973. In 1976 Rawlings raised its baseball profile when it replaced Spalding as the supplier to the major leagues and started manufacturing baseballs for Major League Baseball producing a ball for the American League and one for the National League. In 2000 Rawlings started making the ROMLB for both leagues. The ROMLB is the official baseball and is the same ball used during each major league game.
Rawlings opened a baseball manufacturing plant in Costa Rica in 1987 and closed its Haitian factory in 1990 because of political instability. Costa Rica produces 80,000 dozen major league game balls a year, not counting additional special ones for the World Series, All-Star Game and other Special Event Baseballs. , Minor league baseballs are made at the Rawlings plant in China. Rawlings was, in 1979, the chief source of baseballs for the amateur market, accounting for about one-third of the annual sale of some 1.2 million dozen baseballs.
Today, instructions call for a cork nucleus that weighs exactly 0.5 oz and is 2.86 to 2.94 inches in diameter. It is to be incased in two thin rubber layers - one black, one red - and weigh a total of 7/8 oz. This nucleus is then machine-wound under high, consistent tension with 121 yards of four-ply blue-gray wool, 45 yards of three-ply white wool yarn, 53 more yards of three-ply blue-gray wool yarn and 150 yards of fine white polyester-cotton blend yarn. This is coated with rubber cement before the cover is put on. The cover consists of two pieces of elongated figure-eight-shaped white cowhide, dampened to permit stretching, which is then hand stitched together, using 88 inches of red cotton thread. Finally, the ball is rolled for 15 seconds while still slightly damp so the seams are even and reasonable flat. It takes about 10 minutes for a stitcher to sew the 108 stitches on each baseball. The first and last stitches are perfectly hidden.
At this point, the balls are still not ready for the big league. Balls are selected at random from each shipment and shot from an air cannon at 85 feet per second at a wall made of northern white ash (the wood used to make bats). Each tested ball must bounce back at between 0.514 and 0.578 of its original speed to be suitably lively for Major League Baseball.
The cowhides for the cover are checked for 17 different defects... stretch marks, tick bites, barbwire marks, etc. The leather is tested for tensile strength and sent to the Rawlings-owned Tennessee Tanning factory in Tullahoma. There, the leather is alum tanned, which gives it the white color, and cut in a figure 8. Two pieces make one cover, and the cover is double stitched by hand using 10/5 red thread. Completed balls are tested for strict compliance with standards and are retested after being shipped to the States. Balls that make the cut are sent to the majors, and those that don't are sold on the retail market.
6-7 dozen baseballs are used in a typical Major League game. The average life of a baseball in the Majors is 6 pitches.
The 2009 Rawlings W S Game Baseball is available NOW at www.shopusasports.com
The Fall Classic has provided us with many magical moments. The first World Series, in 1903, was a best-of-nine affair arranged between the champions of the older National League (founded in 1876) and the American League. The AL's Boston Pilgrims upset the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5 games to 3.
The 1904 NL champion New York Giants refused to play Boston the following year, so there was no Series. But the league presidents ironed out their differences, and the Series resumed in 1905, when the Giants agreed to play Philadelphia in a best-of-seven game series.
Since then the World Series has followed the best-of-seven format, except from 1919-21, when it returned briefly to best-of-nine.
Facts About The Rawlings World Series Baseball (ROMLB) Supplied exclusively by Rawlings® for over a quarter-century, each ball comes carefully crafted, weighed, measured, tested, inspected, and re-inspected. 5 ounces and 108 v-shaped stitches of absolute perfection.
Rawlings Sporting Goods started manufacturing baseballs in 1955 when Spalding bought it out. Both the American and National League balls were made by the same company though the American League balls were stamped with the Rawlings name and the National League balls were stamped with the Spalding name. In 1968 Spalding was forced to sell Rawlings after an anti-trust investigation but continued to contract Rawlings to manufacture baseballs until 1973. In 1976 Rawlings raised its baseball profile when it replaced Spalding as the supplier to the major leagues and started manufacturing baseballs for Major League Baseball producing a ball for the American League and one for the National League. In 2000 Rawlings started making the ROMLB for both leagues. The ROMLB is the official baseball and is the same ball used during each major league game.
Rawlings opened a baseball manufacturing plant in Costa Rica in 1987 and closed its Haitian factory in 1990 because of political instability. Costa Rica produces 80,000 dozen major league game balls a year, not counting additional special ones for the World Series, All-Star Game and other Special Event Baseballs. , Minor league baseballs are made at the Rawlings plant in China. Rawlings was, in 1979, the chief source of baseballs for the amateur market, accounting for about one-third of the annual sale of some 1.2 million dozen baseballs.
Today, instructions call for a cork nucleus that weighs exactly 0.5 oz and is 2.86 to 2.94 inches in diameter. It is to be incased in two thin rubber layers - one black, one red - and weigh a total of 7/8 oz. This nucleus is then machine-wound under high, consistent tension with 121 yards of four-ply blue-gray wool, 45 yards of three-ply white wool yarn, 53 more yards of three-ply blue-gray wool yarn and 150 yards of fine white polyester-cotton blend yarn. This is coated with rubber cement before the cover is put on. The cover consists of two pieces of elongated figure-eight-shaped white cowhide, dampened to permit stretching, which is then hand stitched together, using 88 inches of red cotton thread. Finally, the ball is rolled for 15 seconds while still slightly damp so the seams are even and reasonable flat. It takes about 10 minutes for a stitcher to sew the 108 stitches on each baseball. The first and last stitches are perfectly hidden.
At this point, the balls are still not ready for the big league. Balls are selected at random from each shipment and shot from an air cannon at 85 feet per second at a wall made of northern white ash (the wood used to make bats). Each tested ball must bounce back at between 0.514 and 0.578 of its original speed to be suitably lively for Major League Baseball.
The cowhides for the cover are checked for 17 different defects... stretch marks, tick bites, barbwire marks, etc. The leather is tested for tensile strength and sent to the Rawlings-owned Tennessee Tanning factory in Tullahoma. There, the leather is alum tanned, which gives it the white color, and cut in a figure 8. Two pieces make one cover, and the cover is double stitched by hand using 10/5 red thread. Completed balls are tested for strict compliance with standards and are retested after being shipped to the States. Balls that make the cut are sent to the majors, and those that don't are sold on the retail market.
6-7 dozen baseballs are used in a typical Major League game. The average life of a baseball in the Majors is 6 pitches.
The 2009 Rawlings W S Game Baseball is available NOW at www.shopusasports.com
Monday, August 10, 2009
Boston Red Sox 500th Fenway Sellout
A USA Sports Exclusive
To celebrate the record setting 500th consecutive sell out at Fenway Park, Rawlings is producing an exclusive commemorative baseball that will include the Red Sox 500th Consecutive Sell Out Logo, score of the game that night between the Boston Red Sox and the Florida Marlins, The Boston Red Sox Stocking Logo and the date of the historic event. Each officially licensed baseball arrives in a UV protected MLB display cube.Visit shopusasports.com to order Commemorative Baseballs.
To celebrate the record setting 500th consecutive sell out at Fenway Park, Rawlings is producing an exclusive commemorative baseball that will include the Red Sox 500th Consecutive Sell Out Logo, score of the game that night between the Boston Red Sox and the Florida Marlins, The Boston Red Sox Stocking Logo and the date of the historic event. Each officially licensed baseball arrives in a UV protected MLB display cube.Visit shopusasports.com to order Commemorative Baseballs.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Major League Baseball Framed Memorabilia
USA Sports Marketing offers commemorative framed memorabilia. Our new items include: The Citi Field New York Mets "Citifield "Inaugural Season” 24KT Gold Coin Photo Mint", the New York Yankees "Yankee Stadium "Inaugural Season” 24KT Gold Coin Photo Mint", the 2009 World Baseball Classic "2009 World Baseball Classic 24KT Gold Coin Photo Mint ".
Saturday, March 7, 2009
2009 World Baseball Classic
The 2009 World Baseball Classic will begins on March 5, 2009 and will finish on March 23, 2009. Last Classic champion Japan will start off against China. The game will played in Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan.
The first World Baseball Classic was played three years ago in 2006. This international tournament will feature a large number of major league players. It will begin March 5, 2009 and finish on March 23, 2009 playing in seven venues. The tournament takes place during MLB spring training. This has caused some controversy over whether or not it is a good idea to have the Classic played due to potential injuries prior to the start of the season for MLB players.
In this year's World Baseball Classic, teams will play in a double-elimination format, meaning that teams are only guaranteed of playing two games. This change was made to eliminate the complicated tie breaking procedures which were required for one of the pools in each of the first and second rounds in 2006. See our Sports Memorabilia Online at ShopUsaSports.com.
The first World Baseball Classic was played three years ago in 2006. This international tournament will feature a large number of major league players. It will begin March 5, 2009 and finish on March 23, 2009 playing in seven venues. The tournament takes place during MLB spring training. This has caused some controversy over whether or not it is a good idea to have the Classic played due to potential injuries prior to the start of the season for MLB players.
In this year's World Baseball Classic, teams will play in a double-elimination format, meaning that teams are only guaranteed of playing two games. This change was made to eliminate the complicated tie breaking procedures which were required for one of the pools in each of the first and second rounds in 2006. See our Sports Memorabilia Online at ShopUsaSports.com.
St. Louis hosts the 2009 MLB All Star Game
The 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game will be held at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri.
The game will be held on July 14, 2009, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri which is the home of the St. Louis Cardinals - a National League team. The game will be the first All Star game held in St. Louis since 1966. It will be the seventh All-Star Game to determine home field advantage at the 2009 World Series. The American League has won all six games with this new format giving them home field advantage for the World Series. However, the National League leads the American League in this contest, 40–37–2. Although they have not won since 1996. Visit www.ShopUsaSports.com to buy Collectible Sports Memorabilia.
The game will be held on July 14, 2009, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri which is the home of the St. Louis Cardinals - a National League team. The game will be the first All Star game held in St. Louis since 1966. It will be the seventh All-Star Game to determine home field advantage at the 2009 World Series. The American League has won all six games with this new format giving them home field advantage for the World Series. However, the National League leads the American League in this contest, 40–37–2. Although they have not won since 1996. Visit www.ShopUsaSports.com to buy Collectible Sports Memorabilia.
2009 NCAA Men's Division I
Basketball Tournament
The 2009 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament will involve 65 schools playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball as a culmination of the 2008–09 basketball season. Held every spring it is scheduled to begin on March 17, 2009, and will conclude with the championship game on April 6 at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, which will mark the first time a Final Four will have a minimum seating capacity of 70,000.
A total of 65 teams will enter the tournament. Thirty of the teams will earn automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments. The automatic bid of the Ivy League, which does not conduct a postseason tournament, will go to its regular-season champion. The remaining 34 teams will be granted "at-large" bids, which are extended by the NCAA Selection Committee.
Two low-seeded teams (typically teams with poor records that qualified by winning their conference tournament championships) compete in the "opening round" game to determine which will advance into the first round of the tournament, with the winner advancing to play the top seed in one of the four regions. The opening Round game was added in 2001 and has been played in University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio each subsequent year. Even though the opening round is technically considered part of the tournament, it is often referred to as a "play-in" game.
All 64 teams will be seeded 1 to 16 within their region; the winner of the play-in game automatically will receive a 16 seed. The Selection Committee, appointed by the NCAA, will seed the entire field from 1 to 65. There are 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (9.2 quintillion) possibilities for a 64 team NCAA bracket.[4]
This tournament, organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), was first developed by the National Association of Basketball Coaches in 1939. The NCAA would take over the tournament the following season. Colloquially known as March Madness (as the tournament takes place mainly during the month of March) or the Big Dance (as opposed to the now smaller and less prestigious NIT), the tournament takes place over three weeks at sites across the United States, and the national semifinals (the Final Four) have become one of the nation's most prominent sporting events.
Since its 1939 inception it has built a legacy that includes dynasty teams and dramatic underdog stories. In recent years, friendly wagering on the event has become something of a national pastime, spawning countless "office pools" that attract expert fans and novices alike. The tournament bracket is made up of conference tournament champions from each Division I conference, which receive automatic bids. The remaining slots are at-large berths, with teams chosen by an NCAA selection committee. The selection process and tournament seeds are based on several factors, including team rankings, win-loss records and RPI data.
The tournament is split into four regions and each region has teams seeded 1–16, with the committee making every region as comparable to the others as possible. The best team in each region plays the #16 team, the #2 team plays the #15, and so on. The effect of this seeding structure ensures that the better a team is seeded, the worse-seeded their opponents will be.
The brackets are not reseeded after each round. The tournament is single-elimination and there are no consolation games—although there was a third-place game as late as 1981, and each regional had a third-place game through the 1975 tournament. The single-elimination format produces opportunities for Cinderella teams to advance despite playing higher seeded teams. Nonetheless, despite the numerous instances of early-round Tournament upsets, including four instances of a #15 seed defeating a #2 seed, no #1 seed has ever lost in the first round to a #16 seed.
Check Out great NCAA Memorabilia online at www.ShopUsaSports.com
A total of 65 teams will enter the tournament. Thirty of the teams will earn automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments. The automatic bid of the Ivy League, which does not conduct a postseason tournament, will go to its regular-season champion. The remaining 34 teams will be granted "at-large" bids, which are extended by the NCAA Selection Committee.
Two low-seeded teams (typically teams with poor records that qualified by winning their conference tournament championships) compete in the "opening round" game to determine which will advance into the first round of the tournament, with the winner advancing to play the top seed in one of the four regions. The opening Round game was added in 2001 and has been played in University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio each subsequent year. Even though the opening round is technically considered part of the tournament, it is often referred to as a "play-in" game.
All 64 teams will be seeded 1 to 16 within their region; the winner of the play-in game automatically will receive a 16 seed. The Selection Committee, appointed by the NCAA, will seed the entire field from 1 to 65. There are 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (9.2 quintillion) possibilities for a 64 team NCAA bracket.[4]
This tournament, organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), was first developed by the National Association of Basketball Coaches in 1939. The NCAA would take over the tournament the following season. Colloquially known as March Madness (as the tournament takes place mainly during the month of March) or the Big Dance (as opposed to the now smaller and less prestigious NIT), the tournament takes place over three weeks at sites across the United States, and the national semifinals (the Final Four) have become one of the nation's most prominent sporting events.
Since its 1939 inception it has built a legacy that includes dynasty teams and dramatic underdog stories. In recent years, friendly wagering on the event has become something of a national pastime, spawning countless "office pools" that attract expert fans and novices alike. The tournament bracket is made up of conference tournament champions from each Division I conference, which receive automatic bids. The remaining slots are at-large berths, with teams chosen by an NCAA selection committee. The selection process and tournament seeds are based on several factors, including team rankings, win-loss records and RPI data.
The tournament is split into four regions and each region has teams seeded 1–16, with the committee making every region as comparable to the others as possible. The best team in each region plays the #16 team, the #2 team plays the #15, and so on. The effect of this seeding structure ensures that the better a team is seeded, the worse-seeded their opponents will be.
The brackets are not reseeded after each round. The tournament is single-elimination and there are no consolation games—although there was a third-place game as late as 1981, and each regional had a third-place game through the 1975 tournament. The single-elimination format produces opportunities for Cinderella teams to advance despite playing higher seeded teams. Nonetheless, despite the numerous instances of early-round Tournament upsets, including four instances of a #15 seed defeating a #2 seed, no #1 seed has ever lost in the first round to a #16 seed.
Check Out great NCAA Memorabilia online at www.ShopUsaSports.com
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Winners of Past NFL Super Bowls
| Year | Super Bowl | Winner | Opponent | Final Score | Game Location |
| 2008 | Super Bowl XLII | New York Giants | New England Patriots | 17-14 | Glendale, Arizona |
| 2007 | Super Bowl XLI | Indianapolis Colts | Chicago Bears | 29-17 | Miami Gardens, Florida |
| 2006 | Super Bowl XL | Pittsburgh Steelers | Seattle Seahawks | 21-10 | Detroit, MI |
| 2005 | Super Bowl XXXIX | New England Patriots | Philadelphia Eagles | 24-21 | Jacksonville, FL |
| 2004 | Super Bowl XXXVIII | New England Patriots | Carolina Panthers | 32-29 | Houston, TX |
| 2003 | Super Bowl XXXVII | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | Oakland Raiders | 48-21 | San Diego, CA |
| 2002 | Super Bowl XXXVI | New England Patriots | St. Louis Rams | 20-17 | New Orleans, LA |
| 2001 | Super Bowl XXXV | Baltimore Ravens | New York Giants | 34-7 | Tampa, FL |
| 2000 | Super Bowl XXXIV | St. Louis Rams | Tennessee Titans | 23-16 | Atlanta, GA |
| 1999 | Super Bowl XXXIII | Denver Broncos | Atlanta Falcons | 34-19 | Miami, FL |
| 1998 | Super Bowl XXXII | Denver Broncos | Green Bay Packers | 31-24 | San Diego, CA |
| 1997 | Super Bowl XXXI | Green Bay Packers | New England Patriots | 35-21 | New Orleans, LA |
| 1996 | Super Bowl XXX | Dallas Cowboys | Pittsburgh Steelers | 27-17 | Tempe, AZ |
| 1995 | Super Bowl XXIX | San Francisco 49ers | San Diego Chargers | 49-26 | Miami, FL |
| 1994 | Super Bowl XXVIII | Dallas Cowboys | Buffalo Bills | 30-13 | Atlanta, GA |
| 1993 | Super bowl XXVII | Dallas Cowboys | Buffalo Bills | 52-17 | Pasadena, CA |
| 1992 | Super Bowl XXVI | Washington Redskins | Buffalo Bills | 37-24 | Minneapolis, MN |
| 1991 | Super Bowl XXV | New York Giants | Buffalo Bills | 20-19 | Tampa, FL |
| 1990 | Super Bowl XXIV | San Francisco 49ers | Denver Broncos | 55-10 | New Orleans, LA |
| 1989 | Super Bowl XXIII | San Francisco 49ers | Cincinnati Bengals | 20-16 | Miami, FL |
| 1988 | Super Bowl XXII | Washington Redskins | Denver Broncos | 42-10 | San Diego, CA |
| 1987 | Super Bowl XXI | New York Giants | Denver Broncos | 39-20 | Pasadena, CA |
| 1986 | Super Bowl XX | Chicago Bears | New England Patriots | 46-10 | New Orleans, LA |
Steelers choose white shirts in bid to win Super Bowl XLIII
If past history repeats, then the Steelers are sure to win Super Bowl XLIII. The Steelers have chosen to wear their road uniforms, which are white, against the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII on Sunday, February 1, 2009 in Tampa, Florida. Wearing white has 'helped' the Steelers win the big game in the past. They defeated the Seattle Seahawks 21-10 for the NFL title three years ago in Detroit. The home team Cardinals will be wearing their home red shirts. In Super Bowl XL in February 2006, the Steelers had the option of wearing their black home jerseys, but they elected to wear white after playing and winning three road playoff games in three weeks. The Steelers also wore white in Super Bowl IX and defeated the Minnesota Vikings in January 1975.
Wilson Super Bowl XLIII (43) Football
Authentic and Official Super Bowl Game Football. Manufactured by Wilson Sporting Goods, the official supplier to the NFL since 1941.
Each official Super Bowl Football comes stamped with the official SuperBowl Logo on one side and the participating teams, date and game location on the other side. (Not shown….the actual game ball shipped will reflect the teams, date and location of the game). Certificates of Authenticity are provided with each football.
Customized display cases are also available, with a wood finished base and laser engraved with the final score of the game and official Logos of both participating teams. Protect and prominently display your piece of NFL football history.
Also see our Super Bowl XLIII 24KT Gold Flip Coin and our Super Bowl XLIII Official 2-Tone Flip Coin
Each official Super Bowl Football comes stamped with the official SuperBowl Logo on one side and the participating teams, date and game location on the other side. (Not shown….the actual game ball shipped will reflect the teams, date and location of the game). Certificates of Authenticity are provided with each football.
Customized display cases are also available, with a wood finished base and laser engraved with the final score of the game and official Logos of both participating teams. Protect and prominently display your piece of NFL football history.
Also see our Super Bowl XLIII 24KT Gold Flip Coin and our Super Bowl XLIII Official 2-Tone Flip Coin
Super Bowl XLIII
This year's Super Bowl XLIII will feature the A F C champion Pittsburgh Steelers (14-4) and the N F C champion Arizona Cardinals (12-7) to decide the National Football League's (NFL) champion for 2008. Of historical note is that this game matches up two franchises that were merged into a single team for the 1944 season, in response to the depleted rosters during World War II. Pittsburgh will be going for its sixth Super Bowl win, which would place it in sole possession of the record for most Super Bowl wins, while the Cardinals are seeking their first Super Bowl win since 1947 and only the second undisputed league championship in their history.
The Cardinals will be the designated "home team", as is the case for all NFC champions in odd numbered Super Bowls. Arizona will wear their red jerseys--the team has predominantly worn red at home since moving into University of Phoenix Stadium in 2006 after predominantly wearing their white jerseys at home for their first 18 years in Arizona to combat the heat--while the Steelers will wear white jerseys for the second consecutive Super Bowl.Pittsburgh is 2-0 lifetime wearing white jerseys in the Super Bowl, wearing them as the "visiting team" against the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IX and against the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL despite being the "home team" that season due to the team's road success in the playoffs and the team consistently wearing their black jerseys in home games.
The Cardinals will be the designated "home team", as is the case for all NFC champions in odd numbered Super Bowls. Arizona will wear their red jerseys--the team has predominantly worn red at home since moving into University of Phoenix Stadium in 2006 after predominantly wearing their white jerseys at home for their first 18 years in Arizona to combat the heat--while the Steelers will wear white jerseys for the second consecutive Super Bowl.Pittsburgh is 2-0 lifetime wearing white jerseys in the Super Bowl, wearing them as the "visiting team" against the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IX and against the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL despite being the "home team" that season due to the team's road success in the playoffs and the team consistently wearing their black jerseys in home games.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
2009 Rose Bowl Preview
This is the Big Ten champion vs. the Pac-10 champion for the Rose Bowl. This is for the fans of defense and it'll be a stunner if this isn't a knock-down, drag-out war for 60 minutes. This is New Year's Day.
The world is assuming USC will show up and win this thing in a walk. After all, USC owns the Rose Bowl, winning three of the last five with the one bowl loss in Pasadena under Pete Carroll coming in the BCS Championship to Texas three years ago. But Penn State isn't an upstart Illinois.
The Nittany Lions have won four of their last five bowl games, nine of their last 11, and under Joe Paterno, they've gone 8-2 all time in bowls now in the BCS. For all the talk about age, hip replacements, and contracts, the simple fact remains that his team is 11-1 and came within a heartbeat of playing for the national title. This is one of the best defenses he and his staff have ever put together, it's the best wide receiving corps, one of the best offensive lines, and the backfield has tremendous speed at running back and a senior leader in QB Daryll Clark. And now all the talent and all the experience will be put to the ultimate test against arguably the greatest defense in the history of the Pac-10.
Is USC's defense really that good or did the Pac-10 colossally stink? It was a little of both, but the numbers, considering the Trojans play in a BCS conference and faced Virginia, Ohio State and Notre Dame in the non-conference slate, are still dizzying.
The numbers were 206 yards per game and 7.75 points per game, allowing a touchdown or less in eight of the 12 games. Four touchdown passes allowed, 123 passing yards allowed per game, 83 rushing yards allowed per game, 26.6% of third down conversions allowed, 11 total touchdowns allowed, and it goes on and on and on. But now the Trojans will face a real team with a real offense.
USC got Oregon early on when it was still trying to figure out its quarterbacking mess. It got Ohio State without Beanie Wells and with Todd Boeckman at quarterback. It got to fatten up the stats against Washington, Washington State and UCLA, and gave up decent yards and more than 20 points (even if the final Stanford touchdown was pure garbage time padding) twice — just as many times as Penn State. But the D really is that good with a who's who of future NFL starters across the starting 11. And now Penn State has to prove it can get the offense working against the ultra-athletic, ultra-talented brick wall.
Penn State might have led the Big Ten in every important offensive category but pass defense (it finished third averaging a respectable 241 yards per game), but it was held to 13 in a slugfest win at Ohio State, struggled late in the loss at Iowa, and was one of the only teams with a pulse that had a hard time scoring on Purdue. While USC might have had a who's who of big-name cream-puff offenses on the slate, Penn State got to fatten up on Temple, a lifeless Wisconsin, Indiana, Syracuse, Michigan, and Coastal Carolina. The Nittany Lions did blast the same Oregon State teams 45-14 that beat USC, and they rolled against a solid Michigan State defense in the regular season finale, but if they thought the trips to Iowa City and Columbus were a problem, that's nothing compared to the jacked up firestorm they're about to run into.
The conventional storyline is that the Big Ten needs this game to prove it's on par with the biggest of the big boys. After all, the Rose Bowl hasn't been kind to the Big Ten; it hasn't won since Wisconsin's 2000 game against Stanford. But again, this is a different Big Ten team and a different year. Penn State and USC are two teams that think they should've been just as much a part of the national title discussion as all the one-loss teams from the Big 12 South and Florida, and they're each looking to show why there needs to be a playoff of some sort.
If either team wins impressively, then the storyline will be how everyone would love to see what the victor could've done against the BCS champion. If this turns out to be the tough defensive battle expected, then everyone will be wondering how the winning defense would've done against any of the BCS teams with high-powered offenses like Texas, Oklahoma or Florida. No matter what happens, this should be a heavyweight showdown that'll make you love the Rose Bowl again.
Players to watch: The USC defense has a dizzying array of stars, with linebackers Rey Maualuga and Brian Cushing, and safety Taylor Mays all expected to go in the top 20 of the 2009 NFL Draft. But it's Fili Moala who's the unsung anchor that everything revolves around. While the stats aren't anything impressive, they don't come close to showing his worth as an athletic 6-5, 300-pound block of granite who requires double and triple teaming on every play. With no one being able to run up the middle, the star linebackers are able to roam free and make plays.
Also coming in under the radar compared to the mega-watt linebacking stars on the other side of the ball is Navorro Bowman, Penn State's leading tackler with 98 stops on the year and 11.5 tackles for loss. After getting suspended this off-season, he started out camp as a backup who was going to find a spot somewhere, and then the 6-1, 230-pound sophomore dominated. As fast as any of the USC starters, Bowman is a sideline-to-sideline playmaker who has the potential to upstage Maualuga and Cushing.
Up front for the Nittany Lions, and needing to play a huge role, is sophomore end Aaron Maybin, who might not be the big pass rusher the defense usually cranks out — but that's not necessarily a bad thing. More of a bulked-up linebacker on the edge, Maybin is a rangy 6-4, 240-pound speed rusher who showed flashes as a freshman, and came through with an All-Big Ten 2008 with 12 sacks, 45 tackles and 19 tackles for loss. He slowed down over the second half of the season after ripping off 11 sacks in the first nine games, but that's because everyone started to double and triple team him. USC will have to do the same.
Hoping to not be up close and personal with Maybin is Mark Sanchez, the solid junior quarterback who has been a fiery leader and a steady producer, but he hasn't been spectacular despite throwing 30 touchdown passes and ten interceptions. He able to press a little bit, knowing his defense will clean up any mess, but he'll have to be more careful with the ball against a Penn State defense that can change the course of the game with one big play. USC quarterbacks are measured by what they do in January, and if USC loses this game, Sanchez will likely end up shouldering much of the blame.
Penn State will win if ... the offense comes out and punches USC dead in the mouth. Lost in the 35-3 final score in the USC win over Ohio State was how the Buckeyes were able to move the ball in the first half. It was actually a close game until Maualuga came up with a pick six late in the first half, but the need to throw partially stemmed from OSU's inability to run the ball with any power. Not having Beanie was a big part of the problem, but the offensive line was the bigger issue. That's not going to be an issue for the Penn State offensive line that's better than anything USC has seen this year, and that includes its own practices. How do you beat a bully? You come out and show no fear and you get physical, and that's what Penn State has to do. The Nittany Lions have an ultra-efficient passing game, and Clark will have to hit his third-down passes, but the running game that cranked out 212 yards per game has to take control of the game from the start.
USC will win if ... Daryll Clark has to win the game. Clark had a fantastic season, completing 60% of his throws for 2,319 yards and 17 touchdowns with just four interceptions, while adding a running element with 265 yards and nine scores. However, he has never gotten the job done in the fourth quarter. He was knocked out of the Ohio State game, and it was Pat Devlin who led the way during the final scoring drive. He failed late against Iowa, finishing with just 83 yards and an interception that led to the game-winning Hawkeye drive, on just 9-of-23 passing. USC is more than happy to see Clark try to run the ball, and it'll take its chances against the Penn State passing game that might feature a superstar in Derrick Williams, but will have problems coming up with the deep plays.
What will happen: USC will be in for a dogfight. Both teams will be pumped up, both will get big defensive performances early on, and neither offense will be able to establish anything. USC will be able to do a bit more than Penn State, and then the Nittany Lions will get a spark from a big punt return from Williams. It won't be enough. Clark will be under 50% passing, he'll make two big mistakes, and USC will capitalize. This won't be a pretty game, but it'll be nip and tuck the whole way.
This is the Big Ten champion vs. the Pac-10 champion for the Rose Bowl. This is for the fans of defense and it'll be a stunner if this isn't a knock-down, drag-out war for 60 minutes. This is New Year's Day.
The world is assuming USC will show up and win this thing in a walk. After all, USC owns the Rose Bowl, winning three of the last five with the one bowl loss in Pasadena under Pete Carroll coming in the BCS Championship to Texas three years ago. But Penn State isn't an upstart Illinois.
The Nittany Lions have won four of their last five bowl games, nine of their last 11, and under Joe Paterno, they've gone 8-2 all time in bowls now in the BCS. For all the talk about age, hip replacements, and contracts, the simple fact remains that his team is 11-1 and came within a heartbeat of playing for the national title. This is one of the best defenses he and his staff have ever put together, it's the best wide receiving corps, one of the best offensive lines, and the backfield has tremendous speed at running back and a senior leader in QB Daryll Clark. And now all the talent and all the experience will be put to the ultimate test against arguably the greatest defense in the history of the Pac-10.
Is USC's defense really that good or did the Pac-10 colossally stink? It was a little of both, but the numbers, considering the Trojans play in a BCS conference and faced Virginia, Ohio State and Notre Dame in the non-conference slate, are still dizzying.
The numbers were 206 yards per game and 7.75 points per game, allowing a touchdown or less in eight of the 12 games. Four touchdown passes allowed, 123 passing yards allowed per game, 83 rushing yards allowed per game, 26.6% of third down conversions allowed, 11 total touchdowns allowed, and it goes on and on and on. But now the Trojans will face a real team with a real offense.
USC got Oregon early on when it was still trying to figure out its quarterbacking mess. It got Ohio State without Beanie Wells and with Todd Boeckman at quarterback. It got to fatten up the stats against Washington, Washington State and UCLA, and gave up decent yards and more than 20 points (even if the final Stanford touchdown was pure garbage time padding) twice — just as many times as Penn State. But the D really is that good with a who's who of future NFL starters across the starting 11. And now Penn State has to prove it can get the offense working against the ultra-athletic, ultra-talented brick wall.
Penn State might have led the Big Ten in every important offensive category but pass defense (it finished third averaging a respectable 241 yards per game), but it was held to 13 in a slugfest win at Ohio State, struggled late in the loss at Iowa, and was one of the only teams with a pulse that had a hard time scoring on Purdue. While USC might have had a who's who of big-name cream-puff offenses on the slate, Penn State got to fatten up on Temple, a lifeless Wisconsin, Indiana, Syracuse, Michigan, and Coastal Carolina. The Nittany Lions did blast the same Oregon State teams 45-14 that beat USC, and they rolled against a solid Michigan State defense in the regular season finale, but if they thought the trips to Iowa City and Columbus were a problem, that's nothing compared to the jacked up firestorm they're about to run into.
The conventional storyline is that the Big Ten needs this game to prove it's on par with the biggest of the big boys. After all, the Rose Bowl hasn't been kind to the Big Ten; it hasn't won since Wisconsin's 2000 game against Stanford. But again, this is a different Big Ten team and a different year. Penn State and USC are two teams that think they should've been just as much a part of the national title discussion as all the one-loss teams from the Big 12 South and Florida, and they're each looking to show why there needs to be a playoff of some sort.
If either team wins impressively, then the storyline will be how everyone would love to see what the victor could've done against the BCS champion. If this turns out to be the tough defensive battle expected, then everyone will be wondering how the winning defense would've done against any of the BCS teams with high-powered offenses like Texas, Oklahoma or Florida. No matter what happens, this should be a heavyweight showdown that'll make you love the Rose Bowl again.
Players to watch: The USC defense has a dizzying array of stars, with linebackers Rey Maualuga and Brian Cushing, and safety Taylor Mays all expected to go in the top 20 of the 2009 NFL Draft. But it's Fili Moala who's the unsung anchor that everything revolves around. While the stats aren't anything impressive, they don't come close to showing his worth as an athletic 6-5, 300-pound block of granite who requires double and triple teaming on every play. With no one being able to run up the middle, the star linebackers are able to roam free and make plays.
Also coming in under the radar compared to the mega-watt linebacking stars on the other side of the ball is Navorro Bowman, Penn State's leading tackler with 98 stops on the year and 11.5 tackles for loss. After getting suspended this off-season, he started out camp as a backup who was going to find a spot somewhere, and then the 6-1, 230-pound sophomore dominated. As fast as any of the USC starters, Bowman is a sideline-to-sideline playmaker who has the potential to upstage Maualuga and Cushing.
Up front for the Nittany Lions, and needing to play a huge role, is sophomore end Aaron Maybin, who might not be the big pass rusher the defense usually cranks out — but that's not necessarily a bad thing. More of a bulked-up linebacker on the edge, Maybin is a rangy 6-4, 240-pound speed rusher who showed flashes as a freshman, and came through with an All-Big Ten 2008 with 12 sacks, 45 tackles and 19 tackles for loss. He slowed down over the second half of the season after ripping off 11 sacks in the first nine games, but that's because everyone started to double and triple team him. USC will have to do the same.
Hoping to not be up close and personal with Maybin is Mark Sanchez, the solid junior quarterback who has been a fiery leader and a steady producer, but he hasn't been spectacular despite throwing 30 touchdown passes and ten interceptions. He able to press a little bit, knowing his defense will clean up any mess, but he'll have to be more careful with the ball against a Penn State defense that can change the course of the game with one big play. USC quarterbacks are measured by what they do in January, and if USC loses this game, Sanchez will likely end up shouldering much of the blame.
Penn State will win if ... the offense comes out and punches USC dead in the mouth. Lost in the 35-3 final score in the USC win over Ohio State was how the Buckeyes were able to move the ball in the first half. It was actually a close game until Maualuga came up with a pick six late in the first half, but the need to throw partially stemmed from OSU's inability to run the ball with any power. Not having Beanie was a big part of the problem, but the offensive line was the bigger issue. That's not going to be an issue for the Penn State offensive line that's better than anything USC has seen this year, and that includes its own practices. How do you beat a bully? You come out and show no fear and you get physical, and that's what Penn State has to do. The Nittany Lions have an ultra-efficient passing game, and Clark will have to hit his third-down passes, but the running game that cranked out 212 yards per game has to take control of the game from the start.
USC will win if ... Daryll Clark has to win the game. Clark had a fantastic season, completing 60% of his throws for 2,319 yards and 17 touchdowns with just four interceptions, while adding a running element with 265 yards and nine scores. However, he has never gotten the job done in the fourth quarter. He was knocked out of the Ohio State game, and it was Pat Devlin who led the way during the final scoring drive. He failed late against Iowa, finishing with just 83 yards and an interception that led to the game-winning Hawkeye drive, on just 9-of-23 passing. USC is more than happy to see Clark try to run the ball, and it'll take its chances against the Penn State passing game that might feature a superstar in Derrick Williams, but will have problems coming up with the deep plays.
What will happen: USC will be in for a dogfight. Both teams will be pumped up, both will get big defensive performances early on, and neither offense will be able to establish anything. USC will be able to do a bit more than Penn State, and then the Nittany Lions will get a spark from a big punt return from Williams. It won't be enough. Clark will be under 50% passing, he'll make two big mistakes, and USC will capitalize. This won't be a pretty game, but it'll be nip and tuck the whole way.
2009 Orange Bowl Champions
The opening moments were filled with just about every problem Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer feared his team would have against Cincinnati.
It was merely a blip.
Nearly everything else went according to Beamer's plan -- and the Hokies ended a yearlong Orange Bowl hangover.
Darren Evans had 28 carries for 153 yards and a touchdown, quarterback Tyrod Taylor rushed for another score and No. 19 Virginia Tech beat No. 12 Cincinnati 20-7 in the Orange Bowl Thursday night, joining Southern California and Texas as the only schools to win 10 games in each of the past five seasons.
The Hokies (10-4) forced Cincinnati quarterback Tony Pike into a season-high four interceptions. Pike -- who wasn't even on Cincinnati's depth chart at the start of the season before blossoming into an all-Big East quarterback -- threw for 239 yards and a touchdown, but had his night marred mightily by the picks and getting stopped on a fourth-and-goal in the fourth quarter.
Mardy Gilyard had 255 all-purpose yards (158 receiving , 97 returning) and a touchdown catch for Cincinnati, which saw its six-game winning streak snapped. The Bearcats (11-3) came in as slight favorites over the Hokies, who lost this game to Kansas a year ago.
"All year, all year, all year we've been the underdogs," said Hokies' cornerback Victor 'Macho' Harris -- who didn't jump to the NFL last year, in part, because he didn't want to leave school with an Orange Bowl loss. "All year. We had to scratch and claw our way to a victory. We had to scratch our way up to a victory. It says a lot about the character on our team."
So this one was especially sweet for Virginia Tech.
Really, for the entire Atlantic Coast Conference, too.
The Hokies became the first ACC team to win a BCS game since Florida State -- ironically, perhaps -- beat Virginia Tech, then a Big East member, for the national championship to close the 1999 season.
It was eight BCS chances, eight BCS losses for the ACC since.
And the oft-maligned league was just 5-12 over the past two seasons in all postseason games before the Hokies broke through, befuddling the Bearcats' spread offense with an array of different blitzes and, at times anyway, simply winning the battle up front.
"We did a good job mixing it up," Beamer said. "Overall, I'm really proud of this football team. We hung in there."
Evans, the game's MVP, got the clinching score early in the fourth, after Pike threw his third interception -- albeit on a highlight-quality play by Virginia Tech defensive end Orion Martin.
Deep in his own territory, Pike rolled right and threw back to the left, hoping the misdirection would pay off. Martin never bit, made a diving interception at the Cincinnati 10, and Evans rumbled in from 6 yards out for a 20-7 lead with 11:29 left.
Pike got the Bearcats to the Virginia Tech 1 on the next drive, rolled out to his right and tried to run in on fourth-and-goal, and was stuffed by Barquell Rivers with 7:25 left to end Cincinnati's last realistic comeback chance.
"You work out in the summer and in preseason camp because you want to get to this point," said Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly, whose team was picked fifth in the Big East's preseason poll before taking that league title. "But you want to finish it off, so there's a lot of disappointment."
Gilyard walked off the field with tears in his eyes.
"I'm really hurt," Gilyard said. "I really wanted this game for the seniors, the guys I came in with. I'm really, really hurt."
The Hokies' best defense was their ball-control offense. Virginia Tech held the ball for nearly 40 minutes.
"It doesn't get any better than this. BCS, Orange Bowl champs," Harris said. "Being mentioned with teams like Texas and USC, it says a lot about our players, says a lot about Coach Beamer. BCS -- finally, we got one!"
Virginia Tech entered the stadium to the familiar sounds of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" -- the song that usually blares when the Hokies enter Lane Stadium in Blacksburg.
Nonetheless, it was Cincinnati that looked very much at home in the beginning of its BCS debut.
The Bearcats took the opening kickoff, sent their spread offense onto the field and made the Hokies look very confused. Pike found Gilyard for a 38-yard pickup on the third play from scrimmage, and they hooked up for a spectacular 15-yard touchdown three plays later to open the scoring.
Facing a third-and-9 from the right hash, Pike waited ... waited ... waited ... before lofting a fade to the far left of the end zone. Gilyard took off on a sprint, made a diving catch as he sailed out of bounds and managed to just barely drag his right toe on the turf painted in Virginia Tech's colors for a 7-0 Cincinnati lead.
It looked easy.
Ah, but the nation's seventh-ranked defense would eventually get its bearings.
"We don't always play well but we always play hard," Beamer said. "That's what we did tonight."
The Hokies held Cincinnati to 137 yards, rendered the Bearcats' running game nonexistent (eight carries, 11 yards) over the remainder of the half, and battled their way to a 10-7 lead by intermission.
Taylor tied the game with a zig-zig-zag rushing effort from 17 yards early in the second quarter. Out of the shotgun on third-and-9, he started straight ahead, darted right, cut back left and then made a sharper move to run just past the pylon -- the quarterback's seventh rushing score of the season.
Cincinnati had a great chance to reclaim the lead later in the second, until Pike made the sort of error he avoided all season, throwing into what essentially was triple-coverage while trying to force the ball to Dominick Goodman in the back of the end zone.
He came into Thursday with seven interceptions on the year.
"We just did not play our very best," Kelly said.
Stephan Virgil made the interception, the Hokies went 54 yards in 11 plays and Dustin Keys' 43-yard field goal ended the half.
Keys made a 35-yarder to open the third for a 13-7 lead. Pike then threw another interception on the ensuing Cincinnati possession, Kam Chancellor getting the takeaway for the Hokies, sparking plenty of fist-shaking and helmet-slapping on an excited Virginia Tech sideline.
It wasn't exactly a delirious crowd, though.
There were large patches of empty seats in Dolphin Stadium, which wasn't altogether unexpected. Some tickets were available through online resale outlets in recent days -- even Thursday morning -- for $1. Plenty more were offered for well below face value, and the building looked a bit emptier after the Doobie Brothers finished their halftime set.
Event officials said 15,781 sold tickets were unused.
And by the end, it seemed like only the heartiest Hokies fans remained to regale the back-to-back ACC champs one final time.
"In the past we haven't been the top dog at the end," Harris said, "but tonight, that all changed."
The opening moments were filled with just about every problem Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer feared his team would have against Cincinnati.
It was merely a blip.
Nearly everything else went according to Beamer's plan -- and the Hokies ended a yearlong Orange Bowl hangover.
Darren Evans had 28 carries for 153 yards and a touchdown, quarterback Tyrod Taylor rushed for another score and No. 19 Virginia Tech beat No. 12 Cincinnati 20-7 in the Orange Bowl Thursday night, joining Southern California and Texas as the only schools to win 10 games in each of the past five seasons.
The Hokies (10-4) forced Cincinnati quarterback Tony Pike into a season-high four interceptions. Pike -- who wasn't even on Cincinnati's depth chart at the start of the season before blossoming into an all-Big East quarterback -- threw for 239 yards and a touchdown, but had his night marred mightily by the picks and getting stopped on a fourth-and-goal in the fourth quarter.
Mardy Gilyard had 255 all-purpose yards (158 receiving , 97 returning) and a touchdown catch for Cincinnati, which saw its six-game winning streak snapped. The Bearcats (11-3) came in as slight favorites over the Hokies, who lost this game to Kansas a year ago.
"All year, all year, all year we've been the underdogs," said Hokies' cornerback Victor 'Macho' Harris -- who didn't jump to the NFL last year, in part, because he didn't want to leave school with an Orange Bowl loss. "All year. We had to scratch and claw our way to a victory. We had to scratch our way up to a victory. It says a lot about the character on our team."
So this one was especially sweet for Virginia Tech.
Really, for the entire Atlantic Coast Conference, too.
The Hokies became the first ACC team to win a BCS game since Florida State -- ironically, perhaps -- beat Virginia Tech, then a Big East member, for the national championship to close the 1999 season.
It was eight BCS chances, eight BCS losses for the ACC since.
And the oft-maligned league was just 5-12 over the past two seasons in all postseason games before the Hokies broke through, befuddling the Bearcats' spread offense with an array of different blitzes and, at times anyway, simply winning the battle up front.
"We did a good job mixing it up," Beamer said. "Overall, I'm really proud of this football team. We hung in there."
Evans, the game's MVP, got the clinching score early in the fourth, after Pike threw his third interception -- albeit on a highlight-quality play by Virginia Tech defensive end Orion Martin.
Deep in his own territory, Pike rolled right and threw back to the left, hoping the misdirection would pay off. Martin never bit, made a diving interception at the Cincinnati 10, and Evans rumbled in from 6 yards out for a 20-7 lead with 11:29 left.
Pike got the Bearcats to the Virginia Tech 1 on the next drive, rolled out to his right and tried to run in on fourth-and-goal, and was stuffed by Barquell Rivers with 7:25 left to end Cincinnati's last realistic comeback chance.
"You work out in the summer and in preseason camp because you want to get to this point," said Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly, whose team was picked fifth in the Big East's preseason poll before taking that league title. "But you want to finish it off, so there's a lot of disappointment."
Gilyard walked off the field with tears in his eyes.
"I'm really hurt," Gilyard said. "I really wanted this game for the seniors, the guys I came in with. I'm really, really hurt."
The Hokies' best defense was their ball-control offense. Virginia Tech held the ball for nearly 40 minutes.
"It doesn't get any better than this. BCS, Orange Bowl champs," Harris said. "Being mentioned with teams like Texas and USC, it says a lot about our players, says a lot about Coach Beamer. BCS -- finally, we got one!"
Virginia Tech entered the stadium to the familiar sounds of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" -- the song that usually blares when the Hokies enter Lane Stadium in Blacksburg.
Nonetheless, it was Cincinnati that looked very much at home in the beginning of its BCS debut.
The Bearcats took the opening kickoff, sent their spread offense onto the field and made the Hokies look very confused. Pike found Gilyard for a 38-yard pickup on the third play from scrimmage, and they hooked up for a spectacular 15-yard touchdown three plays later to open the scoring.
Facing a third-and-9 from the right hash, Pike waited ... waited ... waited ... before lofting a fade to the far left of the end zone. Gilyard took off on a sprint, made a diving catch as he sailed out of bounds and managed to just barely drag his right toe on the turf painted in Virginia Tech's colors for a 7-0 Cincinnati lead.
It looked easy.
Ah, but the nation's seventh-ranked defense would eventually get its bearings.
"We don't always play well but we always play hard," Beamer said. "That's what we did tonight."
The Hokies held Cincinnati to 137 yards, rendered the Bearcats' running game nonexistent (eight carries, 11 yards) over the remainder of the half, and battled their way to a 10-7 lead by intermission.
Taylor tied the game with a zig-zig-zag rushing effort from 17 yards early in the second quarter. Out of the shotgun on third-and-9, he started straight ahead, darted right, cut back left and then made a sharper move to run just past the pylon -- the quarterback's seventh rushing score of the season.
Cincinnati had a great chance to reclaim the lead later in the second, until Pike made the sort of error he avoided all season, throwing into what essentially was triple-coverage while trying to force the ball to Dominick Goodman in the back of the end zone.
He came into Thursday with seven interceptions on the year.
"We just did not play our very best," Kelly said.
Stephan Virgil made the interception, the Hokies went 54 yards in 11 plays and Dustin Keys' 43-yard field goal ended the half.
Keys made a 35-yarder to open the third for a 13-7 lead. Pike then threw another interception on the ensuing Cincinnati possession, Kam Chancellor getting the takeaway for the Hokies, sparking plenty of fist-shaking and helmet-slapping on an excited Virginia Tech sideline.
It wasn't exactly a delirious crowd, though.
There were large patches of empty seats in Dolphin Stadium, which wasn't altogether unexpected. Some tickets were available through online resale outlets in recent days -- even Thursday morning -- for $1. Plenty more were offered for well below face value, and the building looked a bit emptier after the Doobie Brothers finished their halftime set.
Event officials said 15,781 sold tickets were unused.
And by the end, it seemed like only the heartiest Hokies fans remained to regale the back-to-back ACC champs one final time.
"In the past we haven't been the top dog at the end," Harris said, "but tonight, that all changed."
Thursday, January 1, 2009
The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is a selection system designed to give the top two teams in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) an opportunity to compete in a "National Championship Game". This championship is intended as a surrogate for a playoff system since the NCAA does not formally determine a champion in this category.
The BCS relies on a combination of polls and computer selection methods to determine relative team rankings, and to narrow the field to two teams to play in the BCS National Championship Game held after the other college bowl games. The winner of this game is crowned the BCS national champion, and is guaranteed at least a share of the national championship.
The system also selects matchups for the other prestigious BCS bowl games. The ten teams selected include the conference champion from each of the six BCS conferences plus four others ("at-large" selections). The BCS was created by formal agreement among six conferences, and has evolved to allow other conferences to participate to a lesser degree. It is not formally recognized by the NCAA as a collegiate championship.
It has been in place since the 1998 season, but a number of controversial selections have spurred changes in the system that continues into the present. Prior to the 2006 season eight teams competed in four BCS Bowls. The BCS replaced the Bowl Alliance (in place from 1995–1997), which followed the Bowl Coalition (in place from 1992–1994). As of the 2006–2007 season, the BCS will air primarily on FOX while only the Rose Bowl will continue to be shown on ABC. FOX will continue to air 4 BCS Bowl Games (Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Sugar Bowl and BCS National Championship Game) through the 2009-2010 season. Starting with the 2010-2011 season, ESPN will start airing the games after outbidding FOX for the television rights.
Other NCAA sports determine their national champion through a post-season playoff tournament. However, these tournaments did not start until the 1930's and 1940's. College football was extremely popular decades earlier, when travel was too time-consuming and expensive to support a post-season playoff. The current bowl system began in 1902 with the East-West game in Pasadena, California. Held on New Year's Day in conjunction with the Tournament of Roses, this was an exhibition game between a highly rated team from the west coast and a team east of the Mississippi River. This was an ideal time for a post-season game, as fans could take off work or school during this holiday period to travel to the game. The game was renamed the Rose Bowl in the late 1920's due to the shape of the new stadium built in Pasadena. By the 1930's, the Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl were also held on January 1 to showcase teams from other regions of the country.
By the 1940's, college football conferences began signing contracts that tied their championship team to a particular bowl. In 1947, the Big Ten Conference and the Pacific Ten Conference (then known as the Pacific Coast Conference) agreed to commit their champions to play in the Rose Bowl every year, an agreement that continued under the BCS. This system raised the possibility that the two top-ranked teams in the final poll would not play each other in a bowl game. Indeed, the two top-ranked teams in the final regular-season AP Poll had only played each other in a bowl six times since the AP began releasing its final poll after the bowl games in 1968. Under the circumstances, it was also possible to have a split national championship.
For example, in 1991, the University of Miami Hurricanes and the University of Washington Huskies were the most dominant teams in the nation. Since the Huskies were locked into the Rose Bowl as the Pacific 10 Conference champion against Big Ten champion Michigan, they could not play Miami, who played in the Orange Bowl. Both teams dominated their bowl games and shared the national championship, Miami winning the Associated Press poll and Washington earning #1 in the Coaches Poll. A split national championship has happened on many occasions.
To address this problem, five conferences, six bowl games and leading independent Notre Dame joined forces to create the Bowl Coalition, which was intended to force a de facto "national championship game" between the top two teams. By entirely excluding all the other conferences, the Bowl Coalition also made it impossible for a non-BCS Conference team to ever win a national championship as BYU did in 1984. This system was in place from the 1992 season through the 1994 season. While traditional tie-ins between conferences and bowls remained, a team would be released to play in another bowl if it was necessary to force a championship game. However, this system did not include the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions, as both were obligated to play in the Rose Bowl. The Coalition made several attempts to get the Rose Bowl to release the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions if necessary to force a championship game, but without success. In 1994, undefeated Penn State, from the Big Ten, played Oregon in the Rose Bowl while undefeated Nebraska played Miami in the Orange Bowl, when ideally Penn State should have played Nebraska for the national championship.
The Bowl Coalition was restructured into the Bowl Alliance for the 1995 season, involving five conferences (reduced to four for the 1996 season) and three bowls (Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange). The championship game rotated among these three bowls. It still did not, however, include the Pac-10 or Big Ten champions, the Rose Bowl or any non-BCS teams.
After a protracted round of negotiations, the Bowl Alliance was reformed into the Bowl Championship Series for the 1998 season. The Tournament of Roses Association, which operates the Rose Bowl, agreed to release the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions if it was necessary to force a national championship game. In return, the Rose Bowl was added to the yearly national championship rotation, and the game was able to keep its coveted exclusive TV time slot on the afternoon of New Year's Day. Former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer is considered to have created the BCS. The new Bowl Championship Series not only included the Big Ten and the Pac-10 conferences but also teams from mid-major conferences based on performance.
In the current BCS format, four bowl games and the National Championship Game are considered "BCS bowl games." The four bowl games are the Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, California, the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, and the Orange Bowl in Miami Gardens, Florida. In the first eight seasons of the BCS contract, the championship game was rotated among the four bowls, with each bowl game hosting the national championship once every four years.
Starting with the 2007 BCS, the site of the game that served as the last game on January 1 (or if January 1 fell on a Sunday, January 2) in the BCS will now serve as the host facility of the new stand-alone BCS National Championship game played on January 8 of that year, one week following the playing of the traditional bowl game which would follow the Rose Bowl with the exception of the games to be played in 2010. There are also twenty-seven non-BCS bowls.
Initial plans were for the additional BCS bowl game to be held at the site of that year's championship game, such that the additional, non-championship bowl be named after the original bowl (e.g. the Sugar Bowl when the championship is in New Orleans), and have the extra game just be called "The National Championship Game". Later, the BCS considered having cities bid to be the permanent site of the new BCS game, and to place the new game in the title rotation. In the end, the BCS opted for its original plan.
A complicated set of rules is used to determine which teams compete in the BCS bowl games. Certain teams are given automatic berths depending on their BCS ranking and conference, as follows:
After the automatic berths have been granted, the remaining berths, known as "at-large" berths, are filled from a pool of teams who are ranked in the top fourteen and have at least nine wins. The actual teams that are chosen for the at-large berths are determined by the individual bowl committees.
If fewer than 10 teams are eligible for selection, then an at-large team will be any Football Bowl Subdivision team that is bowl-eligible, has won at least nine regular-season games and is among the top 18 teams in the final BCS Standings. If fewer than 10 teams are eligible after expanding the at-large pool to 18 teams, then the at-large pool will continue to be expanded by four additional positions in the BCS Standings until 10 or more teams are eligible.
Despite the possibility of an "at-large" berth being granted to a non-BCS conference team, this didn't happen until the 2004-2005 season, when Utah received a BCS bid to play in the Fiesta Bowl, in which the Utes convincingly defeated Pittsburgh 35–7. The extra BCS game will relax requirements to give the rest of the conferences better access to a BCS bowl game, possibly ahead of a higher ranked school from a BCS conference.
Unless their champion is involved in the BCS National Championship game, the conference tie-ins are as follows:
The Big East champion takes one of the at-large spots remaining.
For the portions of the ranking that are determined by polls and computer-generated rankings, the BCS uses a series of Borda counts to arrive at its overall rankings. This is an example of using a voting system to generate a complete ordered list of winners from both human and computer-constructed votes. Obtaining a fair ranking system is a difficult mathematical problem and numerous algorithms have been proposed for ranking college football teams in particular. One example is the "random-walker rankings" studied by applied mathematicians Thomas Callaghan, Peter Mucha, and Mason Porter that employs the science of complex networks.
The BCS formula calculated the top 25 teams in poll format. After combining a number of factors, a final point total was created and the teams that received the 25 lowest scores were ranked in descending order. The factors were:
Beginning in 2001, The Peter Wolfe and Wes Colley/Atlanta Journal-Constitution computer rankings were used in place of the NYT and Dunkel rankings, The change was made because the BCS wanted computer rankings that did not depend heavily on margin of victory. The highest and lowest rankings were discarded, and the remainder averaged. A team's poll average, computer average, strength of schedule points, and losses were added to create a subtotal.
Also in 2001, a quality win component was added. If a team beat a team which was in the top 15 in the BCS standings, a range of 1.5 to .1 points was subtracted from their total. Beating the #1 ranked team resulted in a subtraction of 1.5 point, beating the #2 team resulted in a deduction of 1.4 points, and so on. Beating the #15 ranked team would have resulted in a deduction of .1 points. A team would only be awarded for a quality win once if it beat a Top 10 team more than once (such as in the regular season and a conference championship game), and quality wins were determined using a team's current subtotal, not the ranking when the game was played. The subtotal ranks were used to determine quality win deductions to create a team's final score.
The BCS continued to purge ranking systems which included margin of victory, causing the removal of the Matthews and Rothman ratings before the 2002 season. Sagarin provided a BCS-specific formula that did not include margin of victory, and the New York Times index returned in a form without margin of victory considerations. In addition, a new computer ranking, the Wesley Colley Matrix, was added. The lowest ranking was dropped and the remaining six averaged. Also in 2002, the quality win component was modified such that the deduction for beating the #1 team in the BCS would be 1.0, declining by 0.1 increments until beating the 10th ranked team at 0.1. Teams on probation were not included in the BCS standings, but quality win points were given to teams who beat teams on probation as if they were ranked accordingly in the BCS.
In response to the controversy created by the voters in the AP poll naming USC as the No. 1 ranked team at the end of the year, the formula was completely rewritten. Supporters of USC and the media in general criticized the fact that human polls were not weighted more heavily than computer rankings and this criticism led to the new math.
For USC, dropping their highest and lowest computer rankings would have left them with four third-place finishes, worth 23 points each for a total of 92, while LSU would have had four second-place finishes for a total of 96. The BCS averaged the three numbers obtained above, divided the result by 100, and converted it to a decimal fraction. This system placed twice as much emphasis on human polls than computer rankings (since there were two human polls and an average of six computer polls), and made it highly unlikely that the top team in both human polls would be denied a place in the title game, as it happened in 2003-04. The BCS formula for the 2005-06 season was the same as 2004-05, except that the Harris Interactive College Football Poll replaced the AP poll. The Harris Interactive College Football Poll's maximum point value was 2,825 and for the Coaches' Poll, it was 1,550. The Harris Interactive College Football Poll was created expressly to replace the AP Poll after the Associated Press refused the use of its poll as a component of the BCS formula going forward. Before the 2006-2007 season, the maximum point value of the Harris Poll was increased to 2,850 and the USA Today/Coaches' Poll was increased to 1,575.
These 1999 BCS bowl games were played following the 1998 regular season:
• Friday, January 1, 1999 - Rose Bowl presented by AT&T: Wisconsin (Big Ten champion) 38, UCLA (Pac-10 champion) 31
• Friday, January 1, 1999 - Nokia Sugar Bowl: Ohio State (at-large) 24, Texas A&M (Big 12 champion) 14
• Saturday, January 2, 1999 - FedEx Orange Bowl: Florida (at-large) 31, Syracuse (Big East champion) 10
• Monday, January 4, 1999 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, (National Championship): Tennessee (BCS #1, SEC champion) 23, Florida State (BCS #2, ACC champion) 16
These 2000 BCS bowl games were played following the 1999 regular season:
• Saturday, January 1, 2000 - Rose Bowl Game presented by AT&T: Wisconsin (Big Ten champion) 17, Stanford (Pac-10 champion) 9
• Saturday, January 1, 2000 - FedEx Orange Bowl: Michigan (at-large) 35, Alabama (SEC champion) 34 (OT)
• Sunday, January 2, 2000 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: Nebraska (Big 12 champion) 31, Tennessee (at-large) 21
• Tuesday, January 4, 2000 - Nokia Sugar Bowl (National Championship): Florida State (BCS #1, ACC champion) 46, Virginia Tech (BCS #2, Big East champion) 29
These 2001 BCS bowl games were played following the 2000 regular season:
These 2002 BCS bowl games were played following the 2001 regular season:
These 2003 BCS bowl games were played following the 2002 regular season:
These 2004 BCS bowl games were played following the 2003 regular season:
These 2005 BCS bowl games were played following the 2004 regular season:
These 2006 BCS bowl games were played following the 2005 regular season:
These 2007 BCS bowl games were played following the 2006 regular season:
These 2008 BCS bowl games were played following the 2007 regular season:
These 2009 BCS bowl games will be played following the 2008 regular season:
Since 2005 USA Sports Marketing has been producing and distributing an exclusive limited edition BCS National Champions football. This football is manufactured by Wilson Sporting Goods, an official supplier to the NCAA, and is fully licensed by the respective universities and the Collegiate Licensing Commission (CLC). Each football arrives in a Wilson commemorative box and is accompanied by a numbered Certificate of Authenticity.
Other NCAA sports, and other divisions of NCAA football, decide a national champion through a post-season playoff tournament. The BCS allows only two teams to play for the national championship. Usually, one or more undefeated teams are left out of the national championship game, causing controversy almost every year. Various post-season playoff formats have been proposed. Even president elect Barack Obama advocated a college playoff system during an appearance on Monday Night Football during the 2008 election season.
Most fans and broadcasters point to the 2003 and 2004 seasons as very controversial. The 2003 season had three one-loss teams (LSU, Oklahoma, and USC) with a legitimate argument for playing in the championship game. Despite being ranked #1 in both polls, USC was ranked 3rd in the final BCS standings and excluded from the championship game. After USC won its bowl game, it shared the national title with LSU by remaining #1 in the AP poll.
One of the biggest BCS controversies occurred in 2004, when the University of California was denied a Rose Bowl berth, mysteriously dropping from #4 to #5 in the BCS poll despite defeating Southern Miss on the final day of the season. University of Texas fans heavily lobbied for a BCS berth; several fans sat in the front row of the Cal - Southern Miss game dressed in Texas gear and openly cheered for Southern Miss in front of ESPN TV cameras. The lobbying of reporters who voted in the Associated Press poll was so heavy that the poll immediately ended its association with the BCS. In the same season, the undefeated Auburn and Utah were denied a shot at the national championship. USC and Oklahoma (both undefeated) met in the championship game. After USC defeated Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, that left USC, Auburn, and Utah undefeated teams in college football.
In 2006 undefeated Boise State was denied a spot in the National Championship game against the only other undefeated team in the country, Ohio State. Boise State did go on to a BCS bowl and defeated Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl and ended up as the only undefeated team in the nation.
One further criticism regarding the BCS is with respect to the disparity in payouts to the various NCAA Football institutions, which weight much more heavily toward those schools in the so-called BCS power conferences (the six conferences with automatic berths in BCS bowls) than to schools in other conferences. In 2008, a lawsuit was threatened due to the exclusion of teams from the non-BCS conferences in the BCS system.
While there is substantial criticism aimed at the BCS system from coaches, media and fans alike, there is also ardent support for the system. Supporters cite several key advantages that the BCS has over a playoff system. Under the BCS, a single defeat is extremely detrimental to a team's prospects for a national championship. Supporters contend that this creates a substantial incentive for teams to do their best to win every game. Under a playoff system, front-running teams could be in a position of safety at the end of the regular season and could pull or greatly reduce their use of top players in order to protect them from injuries or give them recovery time (this happens frequently in the NFL). This is very unlikely to happen in the BCS system where a team, in the running for a #1 or #2 ranking at the end of the year, would be nearly certain to be punished in the polls enough for a loss that the team would be eliminated from contention.
Supporters also note that while the BCS routinely involves controversy about which two teams are the top teams, in rare instances there is a clear-cut top two; the BCS ensures these top two will play each other for the championship. For example, USC and Texas in 2005 were the only undefeated teams; both teams had only a couple of close contests and had nearly every other game out of reach for the opponent by the second or third quarter. Under the BCS system, these two teams got to play for the championship. Before the BCS, they would likely have played two other schools, and if they both won, then there would be either two champions, or else #2 Texas would have been denied a championship despite going 13–0.
Also, although controversial, the BCS and non-BCS bowl games earn millions of dollars for college football. Thousands of college alumni enjoy the current bowl system; the bowl games take place around the New Year's Day holiday period, where fans can get time off work and school to travel to a warm-weather destination to watch their team play. If a playoff tournament were held after the New Year's Day bowls, the games could not take place on Saturday or Sunday without conflicting with NFL playoff games. College presidents are opposed to holding playoff games in January, as this would conflict with final exams at many colleges and universities.
The NCAA, the governing organization of all collegiate sports, has no official process for determining its FBS (Div. 1-A) champion. Instead, FBS champions are chosen by what the NCAA calls in its official list of champions "selecting organizations".
In 2007, pursuant to a legally-binding contract, all 119 FBS universities chose the BCS as its sanctioned selecting organization. The BCS: "...is managed by the commissioners of the 11 NCAA Division I-A conferences, the director of athletics at the University of Notre Dame, and representatives of the bowl organizations. "...is a five-game arrangement for post-season college football that is designed to match the two top-rated teams in a national championship game and to create exciting and competitive matchups between eight other highly regarded teams in four other games".
This contract has no effect on any other selecting organization; it operates only on its signatories — the member universities of the FBS. Fans or media might argue, opine and arrive at differing results from those of the BCS, but the universities (teams) are bound by the latter's processes.
The term BCS Buster refers to any team not from a BCS conference that manages to earn a spot in a BCS bowl game. With the exception of Notre Dame, it is generally more difficult for a non-BCS team to reach a BCS bowl than for a BCS conference team. Becoming a BCS Buster is noteworthy, although there have been a number of worthy teams, only three teams have met the criteria. The University of Utah football program became the first BCS Buster in 2004 after an undefeated season. The Utes played in the 2005 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, and beat their opponent, the Pittsburgh Panthers, 35-7.
With the addition of a fifth BCS bowl game in 2006 and the accompanying rule changes, it is now a little less difficult to bust into the BCS. It is unclear whether or not BCS Busters will become more commonplace, but due to the rule change, the first three seasons afterwards have seen BCS Busters. In 2006, Boise State became the second BCS Buster after a 12-0 regular season and subsequent Fiesta Bowl berth against the Oklahoma Sooners. The Broncos won 43-42 in overtime, making non-BCS teams undefeated (2-0) in BCS bowl games. In the 2007-2008 bowl season, Hawaii also finished the regular season at 12-0, but were defeated by the Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl. During the 2008 season, the Utes finished their regular season schedule undefeated (8-0 in the Mountain West Conference and 12-0 overall) and became the first school to bust into the BCS twice with their berth in the Sugar Bowl against Alabama. In the same season, Boise State also finished their season 12-0, but did not receive a spot in a BCS bowl.
Had the current criteria been in place in 1998, five additional non-BCS conference teams would have been invited to a BCS game, including two undefeated teams: the Tulane Green Wave in 1998, and the Marshall Thundering Herd in 1999. TCU is the only team that would have qualified twice in 2000 and 2005, and would have been the first non-BCS team to qualify as a member of two different conferences. Miami (Ohio) would have qualified in 2003.
The BCS relies on a combination of polls and computer selection methods to determine relative team rankings, and to narrow the field to two teams to play in the BCS National Championship Game held after the other college bowl games. The winner of this game is crowned the BCS national champion, and is guaranteed at least a share of the national championship.
The system also selects matchups for the other prestigious BCS bowl games. The ten teams selected include the conference champion from each of the six BCS conferences plus four others ("at-large" selections). The BCS was created by formal agreement among six conferences, and has evolved to allow other conferences to participate to a lesser degree. It is not formally recognized by the NCAA as a collegiate championship.
It has been in place since the 1998 season, but a number of controversial selections have spurred changes in the system that continues into the present. Prior to the 2006 season eight teams competed in four BCS Bowls. The BCS replaced the Bowl Alliance (in place from 1995–1997), which followed the Bowl Coalition (in place from 1992–1994). As of the 2006–2007 season, the BCS will air primarily on FOX while only the Rose Bowl will continue to be shown on ABC. FOX will continue to air 4 BCS Bowl Games (Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Sugar Bowl and BCS National Championship Game) through the 2009-2010 season. Starting with the 2010-2011 season, ESPN will start airing the games after outbidding FOX for the television rights.
History leading to creation of the BCS
Other NCAA sports determine their national champion through a post-season playoff tournament. However, these tournaments did not start until the 1930's and 1940's. College football was extremely popular decades earlier, when travel was too time-consuming and expensive to support a post-season playoff. The current bowl system began in 1902 with the East-West game in Pasadena, California. Held on New Year's Day in conjunction with the Tournament of Roses, this was an exhibition game between a highly rated team from the west coast and a team east of the Mississippi River. This was an ideal time for a post-season game, as fans could take off work or school during this holiday period to travel to the game. The game was renamed the Rose Bowl in the late 1920's due to the shape of the new stadium built in Pasadena. By the 1930's, the Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl were also held on January 1 to showcase teams from other regions of the country.
By the 1940's, college football conferences began signing contracts that tied their championship team to a particular bowl. In 1947, the Big Ten Conference and the Pacific Ten Conference (then known as the Pacific Coast Conference) agreed to commit their champions to play in the Rose Bowl every year, an agreement that continued under the BCS. This system raised the possibility that the two top-ranked teams in the final poll would not play each other in a bowl game. Indeed, the two top-ranked teams in the final regular-season AP Poll had only played each other in a bowl six times since the AP began releasing its final poll after the bowl games in 1968. Under the circumstances, it was also possible to have a split national championship.
For example, in 1991, the University of Miami Hurricanes and the University of Washington Huskies were the most dominant teams in the nation. Since the Huskies were locked into the Rose Bowl as the Pacific 10 Conference champion against Big Ten champion Michigan, they could not play Miami, who played in the Orange Bowl. Both teams dominated their bowl games and shared the national championship, Miami winning the Associated Press poll and Washington earning #1 in the Coaches Poll. A split national championship has happened on many occasions.
To address this problem, five conferences, six bowl games and leading independent Notre Dame joined forces to create the Bowl Coalition, which was intended to force a de facto "national championship game" between the top two teams. By entirely excluding all the other conferences, the Bowl Coalition also made it impossible for a non-BCS Conference team to ever win a national championship as BYU did in 1984. This system was in place from the 1992 season through the 1994 season. While traditional tie-ins between conferences and bowls remained, a team would be released to play in another bowl if it was necessary to force a championship game. However, this system did not include the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions, as both were obligated to play in the Rose Bowl. The Coalition made several attempts to get the Rose Bowl to release the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions if necessary to force a championship game, but without success. In 1994, undefeated Penn State, from the Big Ten, played Oregon in the Rose Bowl while undefeated Nebraska played Miami in the Orange Bowl, when ideally Penn State should have played Nebraska for the national championship.
The Bowl Coalition was restructured into the Bowl Alliance for the 1995 season, involving five conferences (reduced to four for the 1996 season) and three bowls (Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange). The championship game rotated among these three bowls. It still did not, however, include the Pac-10 or Big Ten champions, the Rose Bowl or any non-BCS teams.
After a protracted round of negotiations, the Bowl Alliance was reformed into the Bowl Championship Series for the 1998 season. The Tournament of Roses Association, which operates the Rose Bowl, agreed to release the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions if it was necessary to force a national championship game. In return, the Rose Bowl was added to the yearly national championship rotation, and the game was able to keep its coveted exclusive TV time slot on the afternoon of New Year's Day. Former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer is considered to have created the BCS. The new Bowl Championship Series not only included the Big Ten and the Pac-10 conferences but also teams from mid-major conferences based on performance.
Bowl Games
In the current BCS format, four bowl games and the National Championship Game are considered "BCS bowl games." The four bowl games are the Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, California, the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, and the Orange Bowl in Miami Gardens, Florida. In the first eight seasons of the BCS contract, the championship game was rotated among the four bowls, with each bowl game hosting the national championship once every four years.
Starting with the 2007 BCS, the site of the game that served as the last game on January 1 (or if January 1 fell on a Sunday, January 2) in the BCS will now serve as the host facility of the new stand-alone BCS National Championship game played on January 8 of that year, one week following the playing of the traditional bowl game which would follow the Rose Bowl with the exception of the games to be played in 2010. There are also twenty-seven non-BCS bowls.
Initial plans were for the additional BCS bowl game to be held at the site of that year's championship game, such that the additional, non-championship bowl be named after the original bowl (e.g. the Sugar Bowl when the championship is in New Orleans), and have the extra game just be called "The National Championship Game". Later, the BCS considered having cities bid to be the permanent site of the new BCS game, and to place the new game in the title rotation. In the end, the BCS opted for its original plan.
Selection of Teams
A complicated set of rules is used to determine which teams compete in the BCS bowl games. Certain teams are given automatic berths depending on their BCS ranking and conference, as follows:
- The top two teams are given automatic berths in the BCS National Championship Game.
- The champion of a BCS conference (ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-10, and SEC) is guaranteed an automatic BCS bowl bid.
- The highest ranked champion of a non-BCS conference will receive an automatic berth if:
- It is ranked in the top twelve, or
- Ranked in the top sixteen and higher than another BCS Conference champion.
- No more than one such team from Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference, and the Western Athletic Conference shall earn an automatic berth in any year.
- A special case is made for independent Notre Dame, which receives an automatic berth if it finishes in the top eight.
- No more than two teams from any one conference may receive berths in BCS games unless two non-champions from a BCS conference finish as the top two teams in the final BCS standings.
- The third-ranked team will receive an automatic berth if it has not already received one, and if it is a member of a BCS Conference.
- If the third-ranked team did not require an at-large berth, then the fourth-ranked team will receive an automatic berth if it has not already received one, and if it is a member of a BCS Conference.
After the automatic berths have been granted, the remaining berths, known as "at-large" berths, are filled from a pool of teams who are ranked in the top fourteen and have at least nine wins. The actual teams that are chosen for the at-large berths are determined by the individual bowl committees.
If fewer than 10 teams are eligible for selection, then an at-large team will be any Football Bowl Subdivision team that is bowl-eligible, has won at least nine regular-season games and is among the top 18 teams in the final BCS Standings. If fewer than 10 teams are eligible after expanding the at-large pool to 18 teams, then the at-large pool will continue to be expanded by four additional positions in the BCS Standings until 10 or more teams are eligible.
Despite the possibility of an "at-large" berth being granted to a non-BCS conference team, this didn't happen until the 2004-2005 season, when Utah received a BCS bid to play in the Fiesta Bowl, in which the Utes convincingly defeated Pittsburgh 35–7. The extra BCS game will relax requirements to give the rest of the conferences better access to a BCS bowl game, possibly ahead of a higher ranked school from a BCS conference.
Unless their champion is involved in the BCS National Championship game, the conference tie-ins are as follows:
- Rose Bowl - Big Ten champ vs. Pac-10 champ
- Fiesta Bowl - Big 12 champ
- Orange Bowl - ACC champ
- Sugar Bowl - SEC champ
The Big East champion takes one of the at-large spots remaining.
Rankings
For the portions of the ranking that are determined by polls and computer-generated rankings, the BCS uses a series of Borda counts to arrive at its overall rankings. This is an example of using a voting system to generate a complete ordered list of winners from both human and computer-constructed votes. Obtaining a fair ranking system is a difficult mathematical problem and numerous algorithms have been proposed for ranking college football teams in particular. One example is the "random-walker rankings" studied by applied mathematicians Thomas Callaghan, Peter Mucha, and Mason Porter that employs the science of complex networks.
1998–2003
The BCS formula calculated the top 25 teams in poll format. After combining a number of factors, a final point total was created and the teams that received the 25 lowest scores were ranked in descending order. The factors were:
- Poll average: Both the AP and ESPN-USA Today coaches polls were averaged to make a number which is the poll average.
- Computer average: An average of the rankings of a team in three different computer polls were gathered (Jeff Sagarin/USA Today, Anderson-Hester/Seattle Times, and New York Times), with a 50% adjusted maximum deviation factor. (For instance, if the computers had ranked a team third, fifth, and twelfth, the poll which ranked the team twelfth would be adjusted to rank the team sixth.)
- Strength of Schedule: This was the team's NCAA rank in strength of schedule divided by 25. A team's strength of schedule was calculated by win/loss record of opponents (66.6%) and cumulative win/loss record of team's opponents' opponents (33.3%). The team who played the toughest schedule was given .04 points, second toughest .08 points, and so on.
- Losses: One point was added for every loss the team has suffered during the season. All games are counted, including Kickoff Classics and conference title games.
- Before the 1999-2000 season, five more computer rankings were added to the system: Richard Billingsley, Richard Dunkel, Kenneth Massey, Herman Matthews/Scripps Howard, and David Rothman. The lowest ranking was dropped and the remainder averaged.
Beginning in 2001, The Peter Wolfe and Wes Colley/Atlanta Journal-Constitution computer rankings were used in place of the NYT and Dunkel rankings, The change was made because the BCS wanted computer rankings that did not depend heavily on margin of victory. The highest and lowest rankings were discarded, and the remainder averaged. A team's poll average, computer average, strength of schedule points, and losses were added to create a subtotal.
Also in 2001, a quality win component was added. If a team beat a team which was in the top 15 in the BCS standings, a range of 1.5 to .1 points was subtracted from their total. Beating the #1 ranked team resulted in a subtraction of 1.5 point, beating the #2 team resulted in a deduction of 1.4 points, and so on. Beating the #15 ranked team would have resulted in a deduction of .1 points. A team would only be awarded for a quality win once if it beat a Top 10 team more than once (such as in the regular season and a conference championship game), and quality wins were determined using a team's current subtotal, not the ranking when the game was played. The subtotal ranks were used to determine quality win deductions to create a team's final score.
The BCS continued to purge ranking systems which included margin of victory, causing the removal of the Matthews and Rothman ratings before the 2002 season. Sagarin provided a BCS-specific formula that did not include margin of victory, and the New York Times index returned in a form without margin of victory considerations. In addition, a new computer ranking, the Wesley Colley Matrix, was added. The lowest ranking was dropped and the remaining six averaged. Also in 2002, the quality win component was modified such that the deduction for beating the #1 team in the BCS would be 1.0, declining by 0.1 increments until beating the 10th ranked team at 0.1. Teams on probation were not included in the BCS standings, but quality win points were given to teams who beat teams on probation as if they were ranked accordingly in the BCS.
2004–Present
In response to the controversy created by the voters in the AP poll naming USC as the No. 1 ranked team at the end of the year, the formula was completely rewritten. Supporters of USC and the media in general criticized the fact that human polls were not weighted more heavily than computer rankings and this criticism led to the new math.
- AP Poll: A team's AP Poll number is the percentage of the possible points it could receive in the poll. As an example, in the final regular-season poll of 2003, LSU received a total of 1,580 out of a possible 1,625 points from the voters, giving them an AP Poll percentage of 97.2.
- Coaches' Poll: This is calculated in the same manner as the AP Poll number. For LSU, their final regular-season number in this poll would have been 99.4 (1,516 out of 1,525 possible points).
- Computer Average: The BCS used six ranking systems, with the New York Times opting not to participate. In the calculation, the highest and lowest ranking for each team are dropped. Then, it will give a team 25 points for a Number 1 ranking in an individual system, 24 points for Number 2, and so on down to 1 point. Each team's set of numbers is then added, conveniently making the number compatible with the percentages from the two polls. To address concerns about loss of the schedule strength factor, the description of the computer rankings explicitly included schedule strength as a consideration.
For USC, dropping their highest and lowest computer rankings would have left them with four third-place finishes, worth 23 points each for a total of 92, while LSU would have had four second-place finishes for a total of 96. The BCS averaged the three numbers obtained above, divided the result by 100, and converted it to a decimal fraction. This system placed twice as much emphasis on human polls than computer rankings (since there were two human polls and an average of six computer polls), and made it highly unlikely that the top team in both human polls would be denied a place in the title game, as it happened in 2003-04. The BCS formula for the 2005-06 season was the same as 2004-05, except that the Harris Interactive College Football Poll replaced the AP poll. The Harris Interactive College Football Poll's maximum point value was 2,825 and for the Coaches' Poll, it was 1,550. The Harris Interactive College Football Poll was created expressly to replace the AP Poll after the Associated Press refused the use of its poll as a component of the BCS formula going forward. Before the 2006-2007 season, the maximum point value of the Harris Poll was increased to 2,850 and the USA Today/Coaches' Poll was increased to 1,575.
History and schedule
1998–99 season
These 1999 BCS bowl games were played following the 1998 regular season:
• Friday, January 1, 1999 - Rose Bowl presented by AT&T: Wisconsin (Big Ten champion) 38, UCLA (Pac-10 champion) 31
• Friday, January 1, 1999 - Nokia Sugar Bowl: Ohio State (at-large) 24, Texas A&M (Big 12 champion) 14
• Saturday, January 2, 1999 - FedEx Orange Bowl: Florida (at-large) 31, Syracuse (Big East champion) 10
• Monday, January 4, 1999 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, (National Championship): Tennessee (BCS #1, SEC champion) 23, Florida State (BCS #2, ACC champion) 16
1999–2000 season
These 2000 BCS bowl games were played following the 1999 regular season:
• Saturday, January 1, 2000 - Rose Bowl Game presented by AT&T: Wisconsin (Big Ten champion) 17, Stanford (Pac-10 champion) 9
• Saturday, January 1, 2000 - FedEx Orange Bowl: Michigan (at-large) 35, Alabama (SEC champion) 34 (OT)
• Sunday, January 2, 2000 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: Nebraska (Big 12 champion) 31, Tennessee (at-large) 21
• Tuesday, January 4, 2000 - Nokia Sugar Bowl (National Championship): Florida State (BCS #1, ACC champion) 46, Virginia Tech (BCS #2, Big East champion) 29
2000–01 season
These 2001 BCS bowl games were played following the 2000 regular season:
- Monday, January 1, 2001 - Rose Bowl Game presented by AT&T: Washington (Pac-10 champion) 34, Purdue (Big Ten champion) 24
- Monday, January 1, 2001 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: Oregon State (at-large) 41, Notre Dame (at-large) 9
- Tuesday, January 2, 2001 - Nokia Sugar Bowl: Miami (FL) (Big East champion) 37, Florida (SEC champion) 20
- Wednesday, January 3, 2001 - FedEx Orange Bowl (National Championship): Oklahoma (12-0, BCS #1, Big 12 champion) 13, Florida State (BCS #2, ACC champion) 2
2001–02 season
These 2002 BCS bowl games were played following the 2001 regular season:
- Tuesday, January 1, 2002 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: Oregon (Pac-10 champion) 38, Colorado (Big 12 champion) 16
- Tuesday, January 1, 2002 - Nokia Sugar Bowl: LSU (SEC champion) 47, Illinois (Big Ten champion) 34
- Wednesday, January 2, 2002 - FedEx Orange Bowl: Florida (at-large) 56, Maryland (ACC champion) 23
- Thursday, January 3, 2002 - Rose Bowl Game presented by AT&T (National Championship): Miami (FL) (BCS #1, Big East champion) 37, Nebraska (BCS #2) 14
2002–03 season
These 2003 BCS bowl games were played following the 2002 regular season:
- Wednesday, January 1, 2003 - Rose Bowl Game presented by PlayStation 2: Oklahoma (11-2, Big 12 champion) 34, Washington State (Pac-10 champion[11]) 14
- Wednesday, January 1, 2003 - Nokia Sugar Bowl: Georgia (12-1, SEC champion) 26, Florida State (ACC champion) 13
- Thursday, January 2, 2003 - FedEx Orange Bowl: Southern California (10-2, at-large[11]) 38, Iowa[12] (at-large) 17
- Friday, January 3, 2003 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl (National Championship): Ohio State (13-0, BCS #2, Big Ten champion) 31, Miami (FL) (BCS #1, Big East champion) 24 (2 OT)
2003–04 season
These 2004 BCS bowl games were played following the 2003 regular season:
- Thursday, January 1, 2004 - Rose Bowl Game presented by Citibank: Southern California (11-1, Pac-10 champion) 28, Michigan (Big Ten champion) 14
- Thursday, January 1, 2004 - FedEx Orange Bowl: Miami (Big East champion) 16, Florida State (ACC champion) 14
- Friday, January 2, 2004 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: #4 Ohio State (10-2, at-large) 35, Kansas State (Big 12 champion) 28
- Sunday, January 4, 2004 - Nokia Sugar Bowl (National Championship) LSU (12-1, BCS #2, SEC champion) 21, Oklahoma (12-1, BCS #1) 14
2004–05 season
These 2005 BCS bowl games were played following the 2004 regular season:
- Saturday, January 1, 2005 - Rose Bowl presented by Citi: #5 Texas (11-1, at-large) 38, Michigan (Big Ten champion) 37
- Saturday, January 1, 2005 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: #6 Utah (BCS #6, automatic) 35, Pittsburgh (Big East champion) 7
- Monday, January 3, 2005 - Nokia Sugar Bowl: #3 Auburn (SEC champion) 16, #8 Virginia Tech (ACC champion) 13
- Tuesday, January 4, 2005 - FedEx Orange Bowl (National Championship): Southern California (12-0, BCS #1, Pac-10 champion) 55, Oklahoma (12-0, BCS #2, Big 12 champion) 19
2005–06 season
These 2006 BCS bowl games were played following the 2005 regular season:
- Monday, January 2, 2006 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: #4 Ohio State (9-2, at-large) 34, #6 Notre Dame (9-2, at-large) 20
- Monday, January 2, 2006 - Nokia Sugar Bowl[15]: #11 West Virginia (10-1, Big East champion) 38, #8 Georgia (10-2, SEC champion) 35
- Tuesday, January 3, 2006 - FedEx Orange Bowl: #3 Penn State (10-1, Big Ten champion) 26, Florida State (ACC champion) 23 (3 OT)
- Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi (National Championship): Texas (12–0, BCS #2, Big 12 champion) 41, Southern California (12-0, BCS #1, Pac-10 champion) 38
2006–07 season
These 2007 BCS bowl games were played following the 2006 regular season:
- Monday, January 1 - Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi: Southern California (10–2, Pac-10 champion) 32, Michigan (11-1, at-large) 18
- Monday, January 1 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: Boise State (12–0, BCS #8, automatic) 43, Oklahoma (11-2, Big 12 champion) 42(OT)
- Tuesday, January 2 - FedEx Orange Bowl: Louisville (11–1, Big East champion) 24, Wake Forest (11-2, ACC champion) 13
- Wednesday, January 3 - Allstate Sugar Bowl: LSU (10–2, at-large) 41, Notre Dame (10-2, at-large) 14
- Monday, January 8 - Tostitos BCS National Championship: Florida 41 (12-1,BCS #2, SEC champion), Ohio State (12-0,BCS #1, Big Ten champion) 14
2007–08 season
These 2008 BCS bowl games were played following the 2007 regular season:
- Tuesday, January 1 - Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi: Southern California (10-2, Pac-10 champion) 49, Illinois (9–3, at-large) 17
- Tuesday, January 1 - Allstate Sugar Bowl: Georgia (10–2, at-large) 41, Hawaii (12-0, WAC Champion, BCS #10, automatic) 10
- Wednesday, January 2 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: West Virginia (10-2, Big East champion) 48, Oklahoma (11–2, Big 12 champion) 28
- Thursday, January 3 - FedEx Orange Bowl: Kansas (11–1, at-large) 24, Virginia Tech (11–2, ACC champion) 21
- Monday, January 7 - Allstate BCS National Championship: LSU (11–2, BCS #2, SEC champion) 38, Ohio State (11–1, BCS #1, Big Ten champion), 24
2008–09 season
These 2009 BCS bowl games will be played following the 2008 regular season:
- Thursday, January 1 - Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi: Penn State (11-1, Big Ten champion) vs. USC (11-1, Pac-10 champion)
- Thursday, January 1 - FedEx Orange Bowl: Virginia Tech (9-4, ACC champion) vs. Cincinnati (11-2, Big East champion)
- Friday, January 2 - Allstate Sugar Bowl: Utah (12-0, MWC champion, BCS #6, automatic) vs. Alabama (12-1, at-large)
- Monday, January 5 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State (10-2, at-large) vs. Texas (11-1, at-large)
- Thursday, January 8 - FedEx BCS National Championship: Oklahoma (12-1, BCS #1, Big 12 champion) vs. Florida (12-1, BCS #2, SEC champion)
Since 2005 USA Sports Marketing has been producing and distributing an exclusive limited edition BCS National Champions football. This football is manufactured by Wilson Sporting Goods, an official supplier to the NCAA, and is fully licensed by the respective universities and the Collegiate Licensing Commission (CLC). Each football arrives in a Wilson commemorative box and is accompanied by a numbered Certificate of Authenticity.
Criticism
Other NCAA sports, and other divisions of NCAA football, decide a national champion through a post-season playoff tournament. The BCS allows only two teams to play for the national championship. Usually, one or more undefeated teams are left out of the national championship game, causing controversy almost every year. Various post-season playoff formats have been proposed. Even president elect Barack Obama advocated a college playoff system during an appearance on Monday Night Football during the 2008 election season.
Most fans and broadcasters point to the 2003 and 2004 seasons as very controversial. The 2003 season had three one-loss teams (LSU, Oklahoma, and USC) with a legitimate argument for playing in the championship game. Despite being ranked #1 in both polls, USC was ranked 3rd in the final BCS standings and excluded from the championship game. After USC won its bowl game, it shared the national title with LSU by remaining #1 in the AP poll.
One of the biggest BCS controversies occurred in 2004, when the University of California was denied a Rose Bowl berth, mysteriously dropping from #4 to #5 in the BCS poll despite defeating Southern Miss on the final day of the season. University of Texas fans heavily lobbied for a BCS berth; several fans sat in the front row of the Cal - Southern Miss game dressed in Texas gear and openly cheered for Southern Miss in front of ESPN TV cameras. The lobbying of reporters who voted in the Associated Press poll was so heavy that the poll immediately ended its association with the BCS. In the same season, the undefeated Auburn and Utah were denied a shot at the national championship. USC and Oklahoma (both undefeated) met in the championship game. After USC defeated Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, that left USC, Auburn, and Utah undefeated teams in college football.
In 2006 undefeated Boise State was denied a spot in the National Championship game against the only other undefeated team in the country, Ohio State. Boise State did go on to a BCS bowl and defeated Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl and ended up as the only undefeated team in the nation.
One further criticism regarding the BCS is with respect to the disparity in payouts to the various NCAA Football institutions, which weight much more heavily toward those schools in the so-called BCS power conferences (the six conferences with automatic berths in BCS bowls) than to schools in other conferences. In 2008, a lawsuit was threatened due to the exclusion of teams from the non-BCS conferences in the BCS system.
Support
While there is substantial criticism aimed at the BCS system from coaches, media and fans alike, there is also ardent support for the system. Supporters cite several key advantages that the BCS has over a playoff system. Under the BCS, a single defeat is extremely detrimental to a team's prospects for a national championship. Supporters contend that this creates a substantial incentive for teams to do their best to win every game. Under a playoff system, front-running teams could be in a position of safety at the end of the regular season and could pull or greatly reduce their use of top players in order to protect them from injuries or give them recovery time (this happens frequently in the NFL). This is very unlikely to happen in the BCS system where a team, in the running for a #1 or #2 ranking at the end of the year, would be nearly certain to be punished in the polls enough for a loss that the team would be eliminated from contention.
Supporters also note that while the BCS routinely involves controversy about which two teams are the top teams, in rare instances there is a clear-cut top two; the BCS ensures these top two will play each other for the championship. For example, USC and Texas in 2005 were the only undefeated teams; both teams had only a couple of close contests and had nearly every other game out of reach for the opponent by the second or third quarter. Under the BCS system, these two teams got to play for the championship. Before the BCS, they would likely have played two other schools, and if they both won, then there would be either two champions, or else #2 Texas would have been denied a championship despite going 13–0.
Also, although controversial, the BCS and non-BCS bowl games earn millions of dollars for college football. Thousands of college alumni enjoy the current bowl system; the bowl games take place around the New Year's Day holiday period, where fans can get time off work and school to travel to a warm-weather destination to watch their team play. If a playoff tournament were held after the New Year's Day bowls, the games could not take place on Saturday or Sunday without conflicting with NFL playoff games. College presidents are opposed to holding playoff games in January, as this would conflict with final exams at many colleges and universities.
The NCAA, the governing organization of all collegiate sports, has no official process for determining its FBS (Div. 1-A) champion. Instead, FBS champions are chosen by what the NCAA calls in its official list of champions "selecting organizations".
In 2007, pursuant to a legally-binding contract, all 119 FBS universities chose the BCS as its sanctioned selecting organization. The BCS: "...is managed by the commissioners of the 11 NCAA Division I-A conferences, the director of athletics at the University of Notre Dame, and representatives of the bowl organizations. "...is a five-game arrangement for post-season college football that is designed to match the two top-rated teams in a national championship game and to create exciting and competitive matchups between eight other highly regarded teams in four other games".
This contract has no effect on any other selecting organization; it operates only on its signatories — the member universities of the FBS. Fans or media might argue, opine and arrive at differing results from those of the BCS, but the universities (teams) are bound by the latter's processes.
BCS Buster
The term BCS Buster refers to any team not from a BCS conference that manages to earn a spot in a BCS bowl game. With the exception of Notre Dame, it is generally more difficult for a non-BCS team to reach a BCS bowl than for a BCS conference team. Becoming a BCS Buster is noteworthy, although there have been a number of worthy teams, only three teams have met the criteria. The University of Utah football program became the first BCS Buster in 2004 after an undefeated season. The Utes played in the 2005 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, and beat their opponent, the Pittsburgh Panthers, 35-7.
With the addition of a fifth BCS bowl game in 2006 and the accompanying rule changes, it is now a little less difficult to bust into the BCS. It is unclear whether or not BCS Busters will become more commonplace, but due to the rule change, the first three seasons afterwards have seen BCS Busters. In 2006, Boise State became the second BCS Buster after a 12-0 regular season and subsequent Fiesta Bowl berth against the Oklahoma Sooners. The Broncos won 43-42 in overtime, making non-BCS teams undefeated (2-0) in BCS bowl games. In the 2007-2008 bowl season, Hawaii also finished the regular season at 12-0, but were defeated by the Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl. During the 2008 season, the Utes finished their regular season schedule undefeated (8-0 in the Mountain West Conference and 12-0 overall) and became the first school to bust into the BCS twice with their berth in the Sugar Bowl against Alabama. In the same season, Boise State also finished their season 12-0, but did not receive a spot in a BCS bowl.
Had the current criteria been in place in 1998, five additional non-BCS conference teams would have been invited to a BCS game, including two undefeated teams: the Tulane Green Wave in 1998, and the Marshall Thundering Herd in 1999. TCU is the only team that would have qualified twice in 2000 and 2005, and would have been the first non-BCS team to qualify as a member of two different conferences. Miami (Ohio) would have qualified in 2003.
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