American college football has come a long way since the time when players were represented by little red lines of light; the quarterback was the brightest light. From college playoffs to Bowl Championship Series or the much hyped abbreviation BCS, it has been a long journey for the game, players and the fans. The football system at the college level has changed drastically and is still in a fluid mode, we can expect some more changes next year, some more the next year and so on. It all started with the year 1992 when Bowl Coalition came up on the scene. It was followed by Bowl Alliance 1995-1997, which was succeeded by the Bowl Championship Series. Most of the fans still prefer playoffs. But playoffs are a day of past now. BCS is present. It is a system or a lack of it, which selects the bowl champion. A very complex set of computer algorithms, math and public polls, are used by the BCS to decide the best two teams in the nation. These two teams are put up against each other in a match. The winner of the match becomes the bowl champion. BCS is always in the controversies, for example, this year; Florida is going over one-loss Alabama because the Gators beat Alabama. But Oklahoma is going over one-loss Texas even though Texas beat Oklahoma. One-loss USC isn't going because it lost at good-but-not-great Oregon State, but Florida is going even though it did lose to a good-but-not-great Mississippi (at home). Penn State isn't going because it lost at Iowa, Texas Tech isn't going even though its only loss was at No. 1 Oklahoma (it's still the highest-ranked loss), Texas isn't going even though its only loss was on the last play at Texas Tech, and Utah isn't going even though it didn't lose at all. Don't even bother pondering over it and give your scalp some relief. No doubt, the world is moving fast, Laptops replaced PCs (Mac replaced it too), Blackberry is slowly replacing laptops, but some things feel great the way they have always been. Football is all about raw passion and competition, during the playoffs such feeling exuded from the team, so much so that it rubbed on their fans as well. The teams knew how to be the champions, winning at all costs. That is how a sport should be played, like all other sports are played. Though it had its own flaws like a certain 10-6 NFL teams make the playoffs and certain ones don't for obscure tiebreaker reasons, though the level of difficulty of all the divisions were not the same, but still playoffs used to produce true champions and that is what the audiences and fans want. We would never know how the current teams would perform when pitted against the teams of the past, but do we really want to know that? Even the most complex programs can't answer that question. There used to be no national champion in the pre BCS era and practically there is no one now either.
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