What was the determining factors for the bowl games? Or were there bowl games? I mean the computers weren't around since the beginning of football, so what made them come in to play and screw everything up? It seems like a bunch of political b-s to me. Why can't it just be win and you're in? I guess that would have to be a playoff situation then since there are so many schools. Just confused!!
Bowl games were originally nothing more than exhibition games that had tie ins from each conference. The national title(s) was awarded based on several polls after the regular season and before the bowl games. Then they got smart and made the bowl games important and awarded the title after, but, they kept the tie ins because big 10 people like to go to california. For some dumbass reason though, they forgot to change the Heisman ceremony to after bowl games
Conferences had bowl tie ins. For Example: SWC champ - cotton bowl SEC Champ - sugar bowl Big 8 - orange bowl Big X - rose bowl Pac10 - rose bowl After the season* the voters would decide who was #1, and they didn't always agree on who it was. The conference champs mentioned above could never play each other, except Big/Pac10 teams, to determine who was best. *Some polls announced their national champion before the bowl games, not sure what year that changed late 70s early 80s.
You may get a chance to find out. According to Jerry Palm in an interview on Fox Radio two nights ago, that is whee we are headed if the BCS crumbles. He does not like it and nor do we but that is the deal. People automatically assume that playoffs will be ushered in. But the bean counters and money rakers have other plans. A jaunt back to what we had before with them getting the money. They are not going to let it go very easily and it will take an enormous and syncopated effort from many different entities to get playoffs done. I wish I could just blink my eyes and make things better. Had I 3 wishes from a Genie (oh please have the genie be like Barbara Eden in her prime, I digress) I would make playoffs one of them.
i think you mean synchronized, not syncopated. The Fiesta bowl had no tie-in games, and wanted to boost it's image, so they moved to Jan. 1, despite there being TV games at the Cotton, Sugar, Rose, Gator, and Orange already. They boosted their payout, and lucked into a year when the top two teams were independent, Penn St. and Miami, thus setting up the first MNC game, in 1987. Their TV ratings doubled. To recreate that scenario and boost revenue, the bowl coalition was formed by the AFCA in 1992 to match up the two top teams from the Big 8, SWC, SEC, Big East, and ACC, (with Notre Dame), supplanting the bowl tie-ins with an option to seed the best teams in a "championship" game. In 1995, the Bowl Alliance took over with formation of the Big12. The three top bowls, Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta, rotated the MNC and played on different days. Since there was no participation from the Rose Bowl and its tie-in leagues, Big 10 and Pac 10, no "true" champion could be claimed. Enter the BCS. With the grudging cooperation of the Rose Bowl, special rules for Notre Dame, (the last top independent), and a huge TV contract, the new system was born. The "lesser" leagues were left out because they did not have alliances with the major (money/TV) bowls when the coalitions were evolving. Too bad, how sad.
I remember in 1983 when Nebraska was #1 and Texas was #2, people talked about how it would be if the two played each other after the bowls. As it was, they both lost their bowls anyway. The solution was - and still is - to have the top two teams in the polls simply play each other in a designated bowl game. The computers were a fad product of the '90's that someone high up thought was a good idea to introduce to college football.
Hookem123, So if Penn State was voted #1 and SMU #2, the solution was simply for them to play each other in the bowls. The problem with the BCS is that by introducing computers into the mix, we have to worry about not actually getting the top two teams in the polls playing each other. I have always said the computers should just be used as a tiebreaker in the event that two teams get the exact same number of votes.
SMU suffered from a couple of things. 1. The tie was so late in the season, it kind of tarnished the possibility of NC. 2. They beat Pitt by the whopping score of 7-3 in the Cotton Bowl. NO style points, when style points were desperately needed. IMO, had they beaten Pitt by 3 TDs or more, they would have been voted NC.
No, no, I meant synchronization. I want them all to be in sync with one another like the swimmers. Sort of like West Side Story only not horrible and gay like that. Not that there is anything wrong with being gay while there is everything wrong with West Side Story.
