Abstract
The U.S. college football champion is determined each winter by the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), a set of four college football games and an associated ranking system that helps to determine the participants in the four games. One game each winter (the specific game rotates among the four participating games) hosts the national championship game between the top two teams in the BCS ranking. The BCS has been a controversial system since its implementation prior to the 1998 season with the most recent 2003 season producing a disputed championship, the very thing the BCS system was developed to avoid. This current article reviews the history of the college football national championship, the rise of the BCS, the BCS ranking system, and the contributions that statistical thinking can make toward improving the BCS. Though the problem of optimally ranking sports teams is a difficult one there is clearly room for improvement in the present system!
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