This was the final season of the long-lampooned BCS system for determining college football’s national champion.
As in the past 15 seasons, the national-title game matched the teams ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in the BCS standings, which were derived from a controversial mathematical formula combining human and computer polls. Beginning next season, the BCS will be scrapped and replaced by a four-team College Football Playoff.
Here’s a review of how the national championship was decided this season and a preview of how it will be decided next season and beyond:
THIS SEASON
How the champion was determined: The BCS standings again included three components, each counting one-third: the USA Today poll of current coaches; the Harris Interactive poll of former coaches, administrators and players and current and former media members; and an average of six computer polls. The top two teams in the standings, Florida State and Auburn, met for the BCS championship in Pasadena, Calif.
NEXT SEASON AND BEYOND
How the champion will be determined: An unpaid committee will select and seed four teams for the playoff. The semifinals will match the No. 1 seed vs. the No. 4 seed and No. 2 vs. No. 3, with the winners meeting in the final. There will be no preset limit on how many teams from a single conference can make the four-team field.
Where the playoff games will be played: The semifinals will rotate among six existing bowls, with each hosting four semifinal games over a 12-year period. The Rose and Sugar bowls will host the semis for the 2014 season, the Orange and Cotton for the 2015 season and the Chick-fil-A and Fiesta for the 2016 season. The championship game is bid out to cities and venues, similar to the way the NFL chooses Super Bowl sites. AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, has been chosen to host the playoff's first championship game, on Jan. 12, 2015. After that, the next two championship games will be played in Glendale, Ariz., and Tampa, Fla., respectively.
Who's on the selection committee: Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long is the chairman. Former NFL quarterbacks Pat Haden (USC's AD), Archie Manning and Oliver Luck (West Virginia's AD), along with former coaches Tom Osborne, Barry Alvarez (Wisconsin's AD) and Tyrone Willingham and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (a Stanford professor) highlight the group. The others are Mike Gould, Tom Jernstedt, Mike Tranghese, Steve Wieberg and Clemson AD Dan Radakovich, formerly AD at Georgia Tech. The group will meet four times during the season and release rankings every other week beginning in mid-October.
The committee's charge: Besides picking the four teams for the playoff, the group will be responsible for placing teams in the Cotton, Fiesta and Chick-fil-A bowls in the seasons those games don't host a semifinal. The committee also must select the highest ranked champion from non-Power Five leagues (American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt), which will receive an automatic bid to one of the six bowls associated with the playoff.
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