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Here’s what the latest College Football Playoff rankings would look like using the BCS formula

Mark Schipper

By Mark Schipper

Published:

For many, the BCS was BS. The championship structure that took over college football in 1998 with a mandate to create one true champion sometimes and worked and sometimes didn’t—the infamous split-title between LSU and USC in 2003 being the most glaring failure—but it did alter the bowl structure forever and lead to the College Football Playoff in 2014, for better and worse. 

It can be interesting to look back at the BCS formula compared side by side with the CFP’s model to contrast the rankings of one against the other. The BCS was notorious for its flawed computer formula while the CFP is looked at askance for its flawed human craftsmanship. The people over at BCSKnowHow.com have once again lined up the the two models following the Dec. 8 revelation of the latest CFP standings. 

For Ohio State, the BCS continues to favor their output, placing the Buckeyes third and Clemson fourth, while the CFP has the two contenders neatly flipped. 

The BCS must like the Big Ten as it has ranked the Indiana Hoosiers eighth, while CFP apparently doesn’t like the league as its placed the one-loss Hoosiers all the way down at twelfth, behind two-loss teams like Iowa State, Georgia, and Oklahoma, and undefeated (but still untested) Group of Five team Cincinnati. 

The CFP seems to favor the Big Ten further down the line, as the BCS has ranked Northwestern sixteenth, Iowa eighteenth, and Wisconsin twenty-third, while the CFP has Northwestern fourteenth, and Iowa sixteenth—but has left off the Badgers altogether. 

It doesn’t matter anymore because the BCS has been consigned to the dustbin of history, but looking back at the two models and seeing how they compare can be an enlightening few minutes, if only to be reminded it’s a fool who looks for logic in the heart of college football. 

Mark Schipper

Mark Schipper is a reporter, sportswriter, and aspiring novelist living in Chicago, Illinois.