The Auburn Tiger’s football team has been named national champions two times: 1957 by the AP poll and 2010 in the BCS system. Auburn was also named national college football champion by several polls in 1913, 1983, 1993, and 2004. Three Auburn players, Pat Sullivan in 1971, Bo Jackson in 1985, and Cam Newton in 2010 have won the Heisman Trophy.
The Trophy’s namesake, John Heisman, coached at Auburn University from 1895 until 1899. Auburn is the only school that Heisman coached at (among others, Georgia Tech and Clemson) that has produced a Heisman Trophy winner. Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium has a capacity of 87,451 ranking as the tenth-largest on-campus stadium in the NCAA as of January 2011.
Even those longtime BCS critics like myself have to finally admit that the imperfect system has perfectly transformed the sport from a Saturday afternoon cookout to a national obsession. ~Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times
The regular season is the main course, not some overpriced appetizer. There still might be a tidier way to settle the championship issue on the field, but don’t let it come at the expense of the 12-game meat of the schedule. Want a playoff? It’s taking place right now. ~Jeff Shain, Miami Herald
The decision makers for postseason college football have to consider much more than the entertainment aspect of the sport, and in weighing all the factors carefully and repeatedly, we have concluded that the format we currently enjoy is best. ~Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe
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 then served 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 thirty non-BCS bowls.
The primary criticism of the BCS centers around the validity of the annual BCS national championship pairings and its designated National Champions. Many critics focus on the BCS methodology itself, which employs subjective voting assessments, while others note the ability for undefeated teams to finish seasons without an opportunity to play in the national championship game. In fact, in the last 6 seasons of Division I FBS football, there have been more undefeated non-BCS champions than undefeated BCS champions. Other criticisms involve discrepancies in the allocation of monetary resources from BCS games, as well as the determination of non-championship BCS game participants, which need not comply with the BCS rankings themselves. In the 2010-2011 bowl season, for example, the six automatic-qualifier (AQ) conferences were given $145.2 million in revenue from the BCS while the five non-AQ conferences received only $24.7 million.
A recent survey conducted at the Quinnipiac University found that 63% of individuals interested in college football preferred a playoff system to the BCS, while only 26% favored the status quo. President Barack Obama has been vocal about his opposition to the BCS. During an appearance on Monday Night Football during the 2008 presidential campaign season, ESPN’s Chris Berman asked Barack Obama to name one thing about sports he would like to change. Obama responded that he did not like using computer rankings to determine bowl games, and he supported having a college football playoff for the top eight teams. When Steve Kroft asked then-President-elect Obama about the subject during an interview on 60 Minutes, Obama reiterated his support of eight-team playoff; although he has said it is not a legislative priority.
An alternative to an eight-team playoff would be a mini-playoff in the event, and only in the event, that more than two teams finish the regular season undefeated. For example, if three teams finished undefeated, #2 and #3 would play-off for the right to face #1 in the national title game. This system would give all undefeated teams the chance to play for the national championship, while leaving the rest of the bowl game system unaltered.
