Football may be the most popular college sport in
the United States. One of the least popular aspects
of the game, however, is the absence of a playoff sys-
tem to determine a national champion. Until the
1992 season, the sportswriters and coaches con-
ducted separate polls at the end of the year to deter-
mine a national champion. Sometimes they were
split, or controversy existed in the choice of a cham-
pion. In the 1990’s, multiple efforts were under-
taken to reform the traditional system of postseason
bowl games to more fairly determine a national
champion without a tournament. The first effort was
the Bowl Coalition, which lasted from 1992 through
- The second effort was the Bowl Alliance,
which lasted for the next three seasons. The third
and most significant effort has been the Bowl Cham-
pionship Series (BCS), created at the beginning of
the 1998 season.
The BCS was created by the commissioners of the
major athletic conferences, along with Notre Dame,
a traditional college football powerhouse. It is im-
portant to note that it is not managed by the Na-
tional Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the
primary organization responsible for intercollegiate
sports in the United States. They formed an agree-
ment with the four top bowl games (the Rose Bowl,
Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Fiesta Bowl) to ro-
tate a national championship game among them.
It would likely be considered a national champion-
ship game under this system because it would in-
volve the top two teams in the BCS poll at the end of
the regular season. Prior to this system, it was possi-
ble that the top two teams would not play against
each other in a bowl because of conference ties to
certain bowls.
After the first year in existence, the BCS formula
used to determine the rankings of teams was ad-
justed to include five more computer polls. The new
formula deciding the rankings utilized the writers’
and coaches’ polls, a strength-of-schedule rating,
and eight computer polls. The goal was to minimize
the role of human bias in putting together the rank-
ings.
Impact Though not without problems, the BCS has
facilitated the process of holding a true national
championship game between the top-two-ranked
college football teams at the end of the season.
Though closer to its goal of holding a game between
the two best teams at the end of the season, the BCS
has had problems. Its formula for ranking teams has
been changed three times since 1998. As a result of
controversial choices of teams for the national
championship game following the 2000, 2001, and
2003 seasons, the role of the computers has been re-
duced. The writers’ poll requested not to be used in
the process after the 2004 season.Further Reading
Curtis, Brian.Ever y Week a Season: A Journey Inside Big-
Time College Football.New York: Ballantine, 2004.
Mandel, Stewart. Bowls, Polls, and Tattered Souls:
Tackling the Chaos and Controversy That Reign over
College Football.Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons,
2007.
Kevin L. BrennanSee also Football; Sports. Boxing
Definition Professional prizefightingThe 1990’s saw a significant number of great fighters and
great fights in all of boxing’s weight classes. It also had its
share of high-profile ring tragedies and saw the growing
popularity and acceptance of women in the sport.The heavyweight division began the decade with one
of the great upsets in the history of the sport. In Feb-
ruary, 1990, Mike Tyson, who had emerged as the
dominant figure in the division in the late 1980’s,
was knocked out in the tenth round by James
“Buster” Douglas in a bout in Tokyo that was to have
been a routine title defense. Tyson never regained
his former status and was replaced by Evander
Holyfield and Lennox Lewis as the decade’s domi-
nant heavyweights. Another memorable moment in
the history of the division occurred on November 5,
1994, when former champion George Foreman, at
age forty-five, knocked out World Boxing Associa-
tion (WBA) and International Boxing Federation
(IBF) champion Michael Moorer to become the old-
est man ever to win a heavyweight title.
The lower weight divisions, as in previous de-
cades, produced their share of great fighters during
the 1990’s. In the light heavyweight division the
dominant figure was clearly Roy Jones, Jr. Jones won
the World Boxing Council (WBC) light heavyweight
title in 1996 after having held both the IBF middle-The Nineties in America Boxing 115