Remembering the BCS, even if I’m the only one who wants to

Those who crave to see the BCS die are finally getting their wish.

The Bowl Championship Series, introduced for the first time in 1998 as a way to match the nation’s top two college football teams in a national championship game, is clinging to life support. After the 2013 season, a 16-year run comes to an abrupt end as it gives way to a four-team college football playoff in 2014.

At this point, criticism is as synonymous with the BCS as longevity and consistency is associated with the San Antonio Spurs.

Whether it’s President Barack Obama, college football announcer Brent Musburger or Boise State fans, the BCS is deemed a fatuous and frustrating system that relies on a formula too complicated and complex for casual fans to understand (and even serious ones, too).

Six computer rankings — with names like the Colley Matrix and Jeff Sagarin — are combined with the Coaches Poll and the Harris Interactive Poll to determine an average ...

Stop? Yeah, OK, the point is, the BCS formula is a few steps way beyond basic math. It’s complicated to wade through.

Back in 1998, though, the BCS was a radical departure from a sport that had never truly found a way to ensure No. 1 played No. 2 to end the season.

The Bowl Coalition (1992-1994) and the Bowl Alliance (1995-1997) were both close. But it wasn’t until the Bowl Championship Series that the Pac-10 and the Big Ten joined forces with Notre Dame, the SEC, the ACC, the Big 12 and the Big East with the idea that two top-rated teams would square off in a rotating national championship game.

For the past 15 years, the BCS has been tweaked, adjusted and reformulated again and again. At the same time, complaints flied in from the likes of Auburn — undefeated in 2004, yet denied an opportunity to play in the national championship — mid-majors (Utah and Boise State) and, well, just about everybody else.

At the same time, however, college football’s popularity took off like Alabama did once Nick Saban arrived in Tuscaloosa.

The Alabama-Notre Dame national championship — or “the game that shot reality back into Irish fans’ hearts” — was the second-most watched program in cable history. How high would the rating have soared if Notre Dame had shown up?

Instead of concentrating on how the BCS made the game more expansive, ensuring a fan from the SEC would focus on the fortunes of an Oregon Duck or Oklahoma State Cowboy, the system became identified with its computers and upset alumni convinced their team deserved a better bowl game than the BCS provided.

Was it a perfect system? No, of course not. The biggest issue with the BCS was who made the other BCS bowl games. Too many times we were left with Michigan versus Virginia Tech instead of No. 5 Boise State (relegated to the Maaco Bowl) matched up against No. 6 Arkansas (went to the Cotton Bowl).

But the BCS was designed to pit No. 1 and No. 2 in a battle, and it did that spectacularly. And as far as a playoff goes, we have one of those in the current system that’s been given a death sentence — it’s called the regular season.

It’s 581 days until the College Football Playoff is born. By that point, I might be the only one worried about burying the BCS.