History
The perennial cry for a true national college football championship has been taken by bowl organizers as both a threat and an opportunity. The threat is that a post-season tournament for Division I teams will rob the bowl games of their luster. The opportunity is that the major bowls themselves can work together to create at least a mythical championship game.
To seize the opportunity and deflect the threat, the Bowl Coalition was formed in 1992 by four major bowl games (the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar), five major college conferences, and independent Notre Dame.
The goal of the coalition was to stage an annual championship game between the nation's two top-ranked teams, based on the Associated Press and USA Today/CNN polls. That brought about two "championship" matchups, with second-ranked Alabama beating first-ranked Miami in the 1993 Sugar Bowl and #1 Florida State beating #2 Nebraska in the 1994 Orange Bowl.
It didn't quite work in 1995, though, because second-ranked Penn State, as Big Ten champion, was obligated to play in the Rose Bowl. The featured Bowl Coalition game was again the Orange Bowl, in which #1 Nebraska defeated #3 Miami.
The three-year Bowl Coalition agreement was replaced before the 1995 season by the Bowl Alliance, which included only the Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar Bowls, along with six major conferences and Notre Dame.
The Coalition had allowed member bowls to bid annually for the championship game. The Alliance set up a rotating system, with the six top-ranked teams involved, again using the two major national polls.
The Bowl Alliance schedule:
1996 - Fiesta Bowl, #1 vs. #2; Orange Bowl, #3 vs. #5; Sugar Bowl, #4 vs. #61997 - Sugar Bowl, #1 vs. #2; Fiesta Bowl, #3 vs. #5; Orange Bowl, #4 vs. #6
1998 - Orange Bowl, #1 vs. #2; Sugar Bowl, #3 vs. #5; Fiesta Bowl, #4 vs. #6
In the 1996 Fiesta Bowl, #1 Nebraska beat #2 Florida, 62-24. However, the Big Ten's agreement that its champion would play in the Rose Bowl prevented championship matchups in both 1997 and 1998. Second-ranked Ohio State went to the 1997 Rose Bowl and first-ranked Michigan played in the 1998 Rose Bowl.
The Bowl Alliance was replaced by a new arrangement, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), for the 1998 season. The important difference is that the Rose Bowl is part of the BCS and the Big Ten and/or Pac 10 champion will be allowed to forego the Rose Bowl to play in the BCS championship game, if ranked first or second in the nation.
The BCS uses a complex formula to determine the two top-ranked teams. In addition to the AP and USA Today/CNN polls, the formula uses computer rankings, strength of schedule, average margin of victory.
The new agreement, like the original Bowl Coalition, attempts only to schedule a championship game between the #1 and #2 teams. After that matchup has been determined, the other bowls are essentially free to invite any teams they choose.
That fact created a mild furor after the 1998 season, when third-ranked Kansas State was ignored by the major bowls and ended up playing unranked Purdue in the lightly-regarded Alamo Bowl on December 30. Purdue's upset victory, however, seemed to validate the major bowl invitations to lower-ranked teams.
Originally, one of the major bowl games was the BCS championship game: The Fiesta Bowl in 1999 and 2003, the Sugar Bowl in 2000 and 2004, the Orange Bowl in 2001 and 2005, and the Rose Bowl in 2002 and 2006. (Of course, in each case the game was for the previous season's championship; that is, the 1999 game decided the 1998 championship.)
The BCS Championship Game is now played at the site of one of the major bowls, but a week after the regularly-scheduled bowl game is played there. The 2007 championship game, for example, was played at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on January 8. The stadium had hosted the Fiesta Bowl on January 1.