Not a lot of people know this, but the NCAA doesn't recognize an official national champion in the Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision. That's the subdivision Boise State is in. And so are Alabama and Notre Dame and more than 120 other teams. The BCS, or Bowl Championship Series, crowns a champion every year, but the NCAA doesn't care. It's not their tournament, and it's not even a tournament. Division 1 FBS football is the only recognized NCAA sport that doesn't have an organized, official championship tournament.
There was no official champion before the BCS came into existence in 1998, either. The Associated Press crowned a champion, but so did United Press International and at least half a dozen other organizations. And each of those championships was awarded based simply on people's opinions. If it worked the same way in the NFL, we'd dispense with the Super Bowl and the playoffs, and at the end of the regular season we'd take a poll to see who everyone thought played the best this year. And then we'd give them a trophy.
The main reason there's no tournament is that a certain number of people in this country, many of them extremely wealthy, don't want one, because they prefer bowl games.
The first bowl game was held at the end of the 1902 season, and it was meant to be an exhibition game between a team from the west and a team from the east in conjunction with the annual Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, California. The two teams chosen to participate were the Michigan Wolverines and the at-that-time Stanford Indians. Michigan won 49-0. Stanford played so poorly that they conceded the win to Michigan in the third quarter and left. The game was not considered a success, and the Tournament of Roses directors didn't bother to schedule another one until 14 years later.
The game was not known as the Rose Bowl. The word "bowl", at that time, was not a very common name for a stadium and was not associated at all with any kind of championship. The stadium at Yale, one of America's oldest colleges, was called Yale Bowl as a nickname because of its round shape, and the name of the Rose Bowl stadium came from that when it was built in 1923 and was also round and enclosed.
The Rose Bowl game was successful and brought money into Pasadena. The schools that played in the game also made money. And other cities and colleges began to take notice. As of 1930 there was only one bowl game, the Rose Bowl. By 1940 there were four others: the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, the Orange Bowl in Miami, the Cotton Bowl in Dallas and the Sun Bowl in El Paso. The games were all held on New Year's Day so fans and students could attend when they were off work or on school vacation. And every game was held someplace warm.
By 1950 there were eight bowl games. There were still just eight in 1960, but by 1970 there were eleven, and that number has continued to grow. This year there are 35 bowl games.
For years, bowl games were just exhibitions. If a quarterback threw 30 touchdown passes during the regular season and three more in a bowl game, the stats would only count the 30. The idea was that the players and teams who did well during the season would be rewarded with a winter vacation, and that vacation would include a football game. The bowls had nothing to do with standings or championships, and there was no clear structure determining who would play where. Sometimes good teams didn't get an invitation and stayed home. And the Associated Press named its national champion each year a few weeks before the bowl games took place.
Eventually, money began to speak even louder. Bowl game committees began to sell corporate sponsorships. TV contracts grew in size. Fans of consistently good teams began to budget for one more road trip every season. And the games expanded beyond the traditional vacation spots to places like Detroit and Boise.
Bowls have more structure in 2013 than they used to, but not a lot more. Choices of teams are still subjective, and participating teams are still chosen by the individual bowls. They're not assigned a game or an opponent by the NCAA.
Conferences now have bowl tie-ins. That means that if your team has a winning but not exceptional record, you'll more-than-likely go to one of the same three or four bowl games every year.
Boise State is in the Mountain West Conference, which has six tie-ins: the Las Vegas Bowl, the New Mexico Bowl in Albuquerque, the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth, the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego, the Hawaii Bowl in Honolulu and the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl here in Boise. And there are various BCS rules that have, in the past, allowed Boise State to compete twice in the Fiesta Bowl. Also, if the conference doesn't have enough bowl-eligible teams, the tie-in bowls will choose an at-large team, usually from a conference that has more bowl eligible teams than tie-ins.
So where will the Broncos be going? I don't know yet, but in the next few days we'll undoubtedly find out.
If you like to speculate, as most football fans do, get on the Internet and check out one of the websites that predicts each bowl matchup. Most of the predictions change every week, just like the standings, based on who won and who lost.
My favorite of the sites is maintained by Jerry Palm of CBS Sportsline. His predictions as of this morning for the Mountain West say Colorado State will meet Arizona in the New Mexico Bowl, San Diego State will meet Southern Cal in the Las Vegas Bowl, Nevada-Las Vegas will meet Middle Tennessee in the Hawaii Bowl, Utah State will meet Buffalo in the Poinsettia Bowl and undefeated Fresno State will match up with Oklahoma State in the BCS's Fiesta Bowl.
Palm has Boise State in the Armed Forces Bowl against Navy, and he has Bowling Green versus Arkansas State in the Famous Potato Bowl.
But don't buy your airline tickets just yet. As I said, Jerry Palm maintains my favorite of the speculation websites, but just like all the others, he's wrong a lot.
