Initially, when considering the best system to adopt, human votes were taken into consideration. However, this would be a biased system because if based solely on human votes, teams who are not performing but highly popular may be voted to play year after year. There is always the danger of people voting out of biasness instead of performance. This will hardly keep the general population happy.



To address this problem, computers came into the picture. Besides taking the votes of Associate Press writers and coaches into account, the BCS system also uses seven computer ranking methods to come up with a total score. Various factors such as number of losses, number of wins when matched against top teams etc., make up the ranking formulas. The two teams with the lowest total score will be playing in the National title game. However, this system is not without its share of problems.

For example, in 2000, both Florida State and Miami lost only one game. When the human votes came in, Miami was voted as the second team, and Florida State came in third. However, to everyone's surprise, when the computer made the calculations, Florida actually came in second - ahead of Miami. That meant that Florida State actually qualified for the National title game. Obviously, some enthusiasts are not happy with the results.

In 2001, Nebraska lost to Colorado during the final game and they did not win their conference. Colorado came out as the stronger team by winning their conference. The human voters agreed, and most rooted for Colorado. However, when the computer rankings came out, everyone was once again surprised - Nebraska qualified! Everyone thought that the BCS system must have gone bonkers.

But how can computers be totally at fault? After all, they are just following a set of instructions input by human beings to choose two supposedly well deserved teams to play in the national games. Their primary function is never to make everyone happy. In fact, that may be an impossible task.

Whatever teams the BCS system chooses, there will be some who will be happy. For sure, every college football enthusiast wants their favorite team to qualify. If the team that they are supporting fails to qualify, they will be unhappy, and they will blame it on the BCS system. Perhaps that's why year after year, news of flaws in the BCS system kept regenerating.

Obviously, no system in this world in perfect. All the major sports leagues like the NFL or the NBA have their own systems, and they are not perfect. But the bottom line is, they get the job done. Until a better system can be proven to work better than the current system, the BCS system will be staying.