BCS stands for "Bowl Championship Series." It is a term that refers to the system used in American college football to determine the national champion at the end of each season.
The BCS was introduced in 1998 as a method to address the longstanding issue of determining a single national champion among various college football conferences. It replaced the traditional bowl game system and aimed to create a more structured, fair, and definitive way to crown a champion. The BCS consisted of a series of ranking polls and computer algorithms that considered various factors such as win-loss records, strength of schedule, and other statistical data to determine the top two teams eligible to compete for the national championship.
The BCS introduced a number of prestigious bowl games, including the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Fiesta Bowl, among others. The top two teams in the BCS rankings would face each other in the national championship game, which rotated among these bowl games each year.
The BCS system faced criticism for its subjective nature and perceived biases, leading to its eventual discontinuation in 2014. It was replaced by the College Football Playoff (CFP), which expanded the number of teams eligible for the national championship and implemented a playoff format. However, the BCS remains a significant milestone in the history of college football, as it represented a major step towards a more organized and inclusive approach to determining the national champion.
