Over the past few years the biggest debate in sports has been the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS, of college football. In the current system, a computer will decide who plays for the National Championship game. A BCS ranking system compiles all other polls (Coaches’ and AP) together and adds in each team’s strength of schedule to rank the top 25 teams in the nation. At the end of the season the top two teams in this poll play in the National Championship game. This system leaves some teams that are undefeated out of a National Championship game because they do not play as good of teams as other highly ranked teams do.

Many people have voiced concern over the current state of one of the most popular sports in the country. Each year there are four BCS Bowl games, the Rose Bowl, The Orange Bowl, The Sugar Bowl and The Fiesta Bowl. Every year one of them is selected to host the National Championship while the others are used as minor championship games between the winners of certain conferences.

Now that college football has expanded into many minor conferences that don’t have an automatic bid to a BCS Bowl the tension has risen. Even though teams in these conferences are some of the best in the nation and go undefeated, they have never received a chance to play for the National Championship. Teams like Boise St. TCU, Utah and BYU are some of the teams that have been right up there and won big in a BCS Bowl, but these same teams have never gotten the chance to play for the BCS National Championship.

With each year that passes the topic gets more and more heated. Coaches of some of the smaller conference teams get angrier with the process. So many people have showed distaste with the system, but there still has been no change.

People call for a 16 team playoff system of the top teams in the nation is in order. A committee would select the top two teams from each of the major conferences, the Pac-10, Big-12, Big-10, ACC, Big East, and SEC. The final four teams would be wild card selections consisting of a combination of teams from minor conferences such as the WAC or Mountain West or lower ranked teams in any of the automatic selection conferences.

Because there are still thirty other bowls for teams, that do not make a BCS Bowl, that many people love watching they should keep those bowls for teams that do not get into the playoff. No matter what team is playing, college football fans love watching bowl games over Christmas Break.

At the end of each season, even after the National Championship, there is still debate on which team is the best in the country. A National Championship game is supposed to get rid of any uncertainty on which team is number one. There is a poll among coaches conducted at the end of the year on which team is the best in the country and each year more and more non-championship winning teams get higher votes. In 2003, USC did not play for the National Championship but was voted the Associated Press National Champion after the season.

Another huge reason for controversy is that Division I is the only one that does not do a playoff system. An argument for the current situation is that it makes every regular season game matter and you can never take a day off which improves television ratings. Besides that I have not heard other good arguments for the current system. There is so much controversy in this sport that no matter what happens not everyone will be satisfied.