BCS (umm what does that mean)

College football is exceedingly complicated, so it is time to slow down and explain. There is one big organization called the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association). Under the NCAA there are many different sports and many divisions of those sports. There are three divisions in all college sports. Division I is the division with all of the best teams. Division I football  has two sub-divisions- FBS and FCS (Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision). The FCS is a division that decides its champion by a tournament system, but the FBS decides its champion by one game.

The reason it is called the FBS is because there are many bowl games that are played in the postseason. A bowl game is a game with two teams that do not play each other in the regular season and are often very evenly matched. The oldest and most famous bowl game is the Rose Bowl- a game which pits the PAC-12 and BIG 10 champions against each other.

There are five bowl games that are called BCS(Bowl Championship Series) bowl games- The BCS National Championship Game, the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Sugar bowl, and the Orange bowl. They are the bowl games that everyone cares about and wants to go to. There are six conferences that get automatic BCS bowl bids for their champions. They are called AQ conferences. There is a rule that if a team from a smaller conference ends up number 12 or better in the BCS rankings, they get an automatic bid in a BCS bowl game. This is important because Northern Illinois is currently ranked number 14 in the BCS rankings and if they finish the season either at number twelve or at number 16 AND ahead of an AQ champion they will get to go to a BCS bowl game.

All the rest of the bowl games are played by teams that either did not have awesome seasons but still won six games or are in a weak conference but still put together at least six wins. There are some bowl games that are more prestigious than others. For example, the Cotton Bowl is a big game that pits the second-placed team in the BIG 12 against the third/fourth/fifth team in the SEC.

Of course, everybody is more interested in Kansas State so it is time to talk about them. Kansas state lost their last game against Oklahoma, which is sad but not devastating. Kansas state became bowl-eligible with the win over TCU two weeks ago and they only have KU left. When K-State played Iowa State, they won 41 to 7. When Iowa state played KU, they won 34 to 0. So if we extrapolate, we come out with a wildcat victory.

As for those teams that everyone hates. Alabama blew out nobody Chattanooga and Nebraska beat Penn State in overtime, but Texas A&M got their faces handed to them by LSU. I will take one of three this week.