The Truth: The Complete Farce of the BCS

Over the course of the off-season, I embarked on a little project, inspired by this website.

FootballGeography.com listed every school in FBS that has ever been on probation, bowl bans, or the one Death Penalty.

The website only goes to the end of last calendar year, but it's a good starting point to show the abject farce of the BCS. I also add incidents that I know of from this year, and a couple of pending situations as well.

Anyhow, this is to demonstrate just how poorly college football is run.

A caveat before I begin:

There are several games I openly call illegally-played. Some of them have the result recognized, some do not. The difference is whether the result has been functionally vacated by the NCAA and/or other relevant parties. Though I am not afraid to say that some games SHOULD have been vacated, those that are illegally-played (and known as such) will be noted.

Teams not listed were not sanctioned for conduct that season, to the best of knowledge. Some teams are listed which are not sanctioned, their appearances being notable for one reason or another.

We begin with the start of the BCS Era:

1998-99:

Rose Bowl: Wisconsin illegally defeats UCLA 38-31.
Sugar Bowl: Ohio State defeats Texas A&M 24-14
Orange Bowl: Florida defeats Syracuse 31-10

National Championship/Fiesta Bowl: Tennessee wins the first BCS National Championship over Florida State 23-16.

Wisconsin: Improper extra benefits over a seven-year period (1993- summer 2000). Assessed five years NCAA probation (2001-2005), no bowl ban, no vacated games (though discussed), Rose Bowl win stands.

1999-2000:

Rose Bowl: Wisconsin (again illegally) defeats Stanford 17-9.
Orange Bowl: Michigan defeats Alabama 35-34 in overtime, in an illegally-played game.
Fiesta Bowl: Nebraska defeats Tennessee 31-21.

National Championship/Sugar Bowl: Florida State wins the national title over Virginia Tech, 46-29.

Wisconsin: See above. This was the final year of the covered misconduct.

Alabama: Massive recruiting violations, including impermissible benefits, over a period 1995-2000. The Death Penalty was considered for the Alabama program when the hammer came down in 2002, because they were a repeat offender from a 1993 sanction. (Oh, how college football would've changed if that occurred!) Five years additional probation (2002-2006), with the first two years having a bowl ban slapped on top of it. Apparently, the appearance in this game still stands.

They, according to the chairman of the Infractions Committee, probably came as close as any school post-SMU to the Death Penalty.

2000-2001:

Rose Bowl: Washington illegally defeats Purdue, 34-24.
Fiesta Bowl: Oregon State defeated Notre Dame, 41-9.
Sugar Bowl: Miami (FL) defeated the University of Florida, 37-20, in an in-state clash.

National Championship/Orange Bowl: Oklahoma defeats Florida State in the Seminoles' third consecutive title game appearance, 13-2.

Washington (becoming the third consecutive Rose Bowl winner to win the game illegally in the BCS Era): The 2000-2001 season was the first of four in which the NCAA identified the Huskies for recruiting violations and impermissible benefits from almost literally the day coach Rick Neuheisel took the job. Not only were the Huskies put on two years probation in 2005, but the penalty was extended when Neuheisel was accused of gambling on the 2003 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament in violation of the NCAA guidelines. For these offenses, Neuheisel was going to be banned from the NCAA for two years (but apparently acted improperly themselves, forcing a financial settlement while Neuheisel was in the NFL), and Washington got two more years of probation. However, as with Wisconsin the two years previous, the participation and result, unfortunately, stand.

Additionally, at least a dozen players were arrested for what would be considered felonies just in that season alone, according to a special report by the Seattle Times. It was routinely known that football trumped all, as most punishments and investigations, that season, were withheld until the season ended.

Notre Dame participated legally: The Fighting Irish were under probation at the time for illegal benefits from a criminal booster and improper use of tickets for a player who was thrown off the team from 1995-1999. This was the second and final year of Notre Dame's probation.

Miami participated legally: Miami was two years removed from it's third bout with a bowl ban/probation situation with the NCAA, this one basically covering the entire “The U” era: 1985-1994. Nevin Shapiro does not become a booster with the University of Miami until later in 2001. Hence, no known violations for this Miami appearance, shockingly, unless something comes up in the Shapiro reports (hearings wrapped up in mid-June of 2013, with much wrangling as a result of the scope of the misconduct (on both Miami's part and the NCAA's!) in progress).

2001-2002:

Fiesta Bowl: Oregon defeated Colorado, 38-16.
Sugar Bowl: LSU defeated Illinois, 47-34.
Orange Bowl: Florida trounced Maryland, 56-23.

National Championship/Rose Bowl: Miami (FL) defeated Nebraska 37-14.

Colorado: Neuheisel was sanctioned (a year and a half into his stint with Washington) for similar illegal conduct at his previous job – at the University of Colorado!

Miami: According to an extensive timeline of Nevin Shapiro's involvement with the Miami (FL) program, Shapiro had met with at least two players before this BCS National Championship Game, and gave at least one of them a big-screen television set and Miami Heat game tickets. This would begin an eight-year period in which over 100 Miami players are alleged to have been given illegal gifts by Shapiro. The only information the timeline provides is that the gifts were given “after the season” and that he met with the relevant player in December, before the victory over Nebraska. It is not known at this time whether the illegal benefits came before or after this game, but, should the NCAA find the player ineligible and the allegations stand (even with improper conduct by the NCAA), look for this National Championship to be nullfied.

2002-2003:

Rose Bowl: Oklahoma (the Big Ten champion was in the title match) defeated Washington State 34-14.
Sugar Bowl: Georgia over Florida State (in it's 4^th BCS bowl, three losses) 26-13
Orange Bowl: USC defeats Iowa 38-17.

National Championship/Fiesta Bowl: The classic Ohio State double-overtime victory over Miami (FL) 31-24.

Rose Bowl/Oklahoma: This is the first time in the BCS Era (the FOURTH year of it) that the Rose Bowl was won by a team which was not sanctioned for actions in the season in which they won it.

USC participated in this one legally: It would be two further years before the Reggie Bush fiasco blows up. This Trojan team was in the second year of probation for another set of offenses, however, stemming from academic fraud from 1996-1998 involving three students.

Miami: It is almost certain, however, that, unless the entire Shapiro case is thrown out, Miami's participation in the Fiesta Bowl/National Championship Game will almost certainly be revoked. The player Shapiro gave benefits to after the previous season completed his career in Miami with this game, so he's clearly ineligible unless the case is thrown out. Over a period starting in 2002, Shapiro buys a stake in an agency recruiting players for the Miami team and lavishing the team with money, gifts, prostitutes, and parties on his yacht.

2003-2004:

Rose Bowl: USC defeated Michigan 28-14.
Orange Bowl: Miami (FL) defeats Florida State in another Florida clash, 16-14.
Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State defeats Kansas State, 35-28.

“National Championship”/Sugar Bowl: LSU only wins a share of the national title, creating much controversy, after defeating Oklahoma 21-14. USC would gain the AP National Title.

Miami: See above.

USC and Ohio State participated legally this year: But both schools would get in trouble starting the NEXT season.

2004-2005:

Rose Bowl: Texas defeats Michigan 38-37.
Fiesta Bowl: Utah became the first team outside the BCS (I consider Notre Dame to be inside the BCS) to break into the formula, and trounced Pittsburgh 35-7.
Sugar Bowl: Auburn defeated Virginia Tech to join Utah as undefeated, 16-13.

The National Championship Game is the only BCS Championship to be fully nullified. The game was illegally played, and no BCS champion will exist for that season.

Texas participated legally, but Colt McCoy's wife may have said differently in 2011. Nothing has come of it, though, at least to my understanding.

Utah: Utah was in the second year of a three-year probation period for “Extra benefits, recruiting, including impermissible observation of recruits in athletically related activities; continuing eligibility; playing and practice season limits; unethical conduct (academic fraud) and a lack of institutional control”. Took a while to find it, but there it was. Given this list of violations, one might question whether Utah could've been bowl-banned for the 2004-2005 season, preventing them from this historic event.

USC: The Reggie Bush fiasco would cost USC dearly. They would become the first team in history to lose a top-flight recognized National Championship in football, would lose recognition of participation in both this and the next BCS title game, four years of probation (this 2013 season being the last one), and two years banned from bowls, from which the USC program has still not recovered, being replaced in what I refer to as the “BCS Family” by the University of Oregon.

2005-2006:

Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State 34 – Notre Dame 20
Sugar Bowl: West Virginia beat Georgia, 38-35.

Orange Bowl: Game vacated and declared illegally-played due to Jerry Sandusky child-rape coverup at Penn State University.

National Championship/Rose Bowl: Texas would win the illegally-played National Championship game, and, since Colt McCoy's wife's claims have come to nothing, are still recognized as 2005-2006 BCS National Champions.

West Virginia: This would be the first year in which West Virginia used managers and other parties to illegally practice players on technique and other such matters. This took place over a five-year period under two head coaches (2005-2009). In 2011, the Mountaineers self-imposed two years' probation for these offenses, but this win, unfortunately, stands. One of the coaches involved? Rich Rodriguez.

Penn State: Jerry Sandusky.

The four-year bowl-ban given to Penn State is only the second time in NCAA history that a football team has been bowl-banned for four seasons. The first? Indiana! Indiana had either just gotten off probation in 1958 or was still on it when it committed a second set of violations, openly paying athletes and providing them with free airplane tickets. (Sounds like the Hoosiers were ahead of their time!!) In fact, the football offenses were so severe that ALL Indiana Hoosier sports were banned from the NCAA post-season. Various forms of the Death Penalty were in place by that time, but Indiana football (it appears unjustifiably) did not receive this penalty.

USC: Reggie Bush.

2006-2007:

Rose Bowl: USC (in the interim between the Reggie Bush scandal and the penalties) actually does legally defeat Michigan, 32-18.
Fiesta Bowl: Boise State wins an utter classic, 43-42 over Oklahoma, in an illegally-played game.
Orange Bowl: Louisville defeated Wake Forest, 24-13.
Sugar Bowl: LSU defeats Notre Dame 41-14.

National Championship: In the first separate BCS National Championship Game, the SEC began it's run of titles to the current one, Florida defeating Ohio State 41-14.

Boise State: Unfortunately, the entire Boise State run was almost certainly an illegal farce. Over the course of the five seasons where it really appeared the Broncos could've destroyed the BCS by forcing their way into the title game (2005-2009), Boise State was systematically giving illegal benefits to 75 current and prospective student-athletes, 63 of them in football. Many of these benefits came from illegal summer housing.

It would be very difficult for me to believe, at this juncture, that this storybook-tale win should not be vacated (unless none of the 63 players played for Boise State in that season), but the NCAA did not do so, even though most parties admit that the meteoric rise of the Broncos from Division II to FBS/BCS Crasher was done illegally – that there was no way it could've been done under NCAA rules.

Boise State, seen by many as one of the top 10 or so preseason teams in 2013, will do so in the third year of four years of NCAA probation as a result of these violations.

Oklahoma: In fact, both teams in that Fiesta Bowl classic were illegal that season. Later in 2007, the season previous to this (2005-2006) had to be vacated for Oklahoma due to illegal monetary benefits, including the starting quarterback. The team was already under two years probation at this time for violations in the basketball program, and got two more years tacked on.

So this game (one of college football's “classics”), feasibly, never should've taken place at all!!!

Orange Bowl/Wake Forest and Louisville: In the entire history of the BCS, this Orange Bowl game is the ONLY game in the BCS Era contested between two football programs never sanctioned at probation-level or above.

2007-2008:

Rose Bowl: USC over Illinois, 49-17.
Sugar Bowl: Georgia, in a game many felt finished the non-AQ's from championship consideration, destroyed Hawaii 41-10.
Fiesta Bowl: West Virginia over Oklahoma, 48-28
Orange Bowl: Kansas over Virginia Tech 24-21.

National Championship: LSU defeats Ohio State 38-24.

USC was still awaiting to pay the piper for Reggie Bush.

Hawaii became the first BCS Crasher to legally gain that status.

West Virginia: See above – year 3.

Oklahoma participated legally: The players involved in the previous incident were tossed at the previous season.

Kansas: Kansas was in the first full year of three seasons of NCAA probation for violations culminating in 2003 across their athletic programs, including significant academic fraud and illegal payments. Ironically, the Jayhawks were given the 2003 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship after violations ruled Syracuse ineligible.

Though an audit had revealed significant violations through 2001, the NCAA was not satisfied anything was being done to deal with them until 2003.

This win, very easily, could have and should have been vacated. It was not.

2008-2009:

Rose Bowl: Southern California won an illegally-played game.
Orange Bowl: Virginia Tech over Cincinnati, 20-7
Sugar Bowl: Utah over Alabama 31-17.
Fiesta Bowl: Texas over Ohio State, 24-21.

National Championship: Florida makes it three in a row for the SEC, over Oklahoma 24-14 in what, as time goes on, we should consider an illegally-played game.

Penn State: Sandusky.

USC: The seventh consecutive BCS bowl for USC, the last four (at least) under some degree of questionable circumstances.

Alabama: Alabama was in the middle of yet another NCAA investigation! The school would be forced to vacate 21 wins over the previous three seasons (2005-2006 through 2007-2008) for the illegal acquisition of textbooks for athletes in at least sixteen sports. The penalties would be imposed (three years of probation – and Alabama's track record with the NCAA was so completely slammed that, for the second time, the Death Penalty was, at least, mentioned) after this season. Again, how history could've changed!!

Ohio State: According to a timeline from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the violations which would fell the program and coach Jim Tressel started after this season. Terrell Pryor sold basically everything he had from this season (his gold pants, the sportsmanship award from this game, his ring from the Big Ten Championship from that year...).

Oklahoma: See above. Oklahoma's probation started here.

Florida: The truth is coming out – after the Aaron Hernandez arrest in July of 2013.

With what we know now, it is clear that SOMEONE should've stepped in and stripped this championship.

A July 2013 New York Times investigation brings up a startling point. No less than 16 players (first or second-string), including nine starters, the punter, the kicker, and a return specialist, have been arrested at some point in the equation, either in college and/or afterward. Of the 121 players listed on the roster for this team, a third have been arrested.

Then-coach Urban Meyer: “Relating or blaming these serious charges to the University of Florida, myself or our staff is wrong and irresponsible.”

2009-2010:

Rose Bowl: Ohio State 26 – Oregon 17.
Sugar Bowl: Florida creams Cincinnati. 51-24.
Fiesta Bowl: In the only BCS game to date not to be for the title and involving two undefeated teams (not coincidentally, also the only BCS game to date to involve two non-AQ programs!), Boise State illegally defeated TCU 17-10.
Orange Bowl: Iowa won an illegally-played game.

National Championship: Alabama over Texas, 37-21.

All five BCS games for the 2009-2010 season were illegally-played, in one form or another. Only three teams, Iowa (who has never been sanctioned to this level), Texas, and TCU were legally in these games.

Ohio State: Ohio State, as stated above, was clearly illegal and using ineligible players. The only vacation of wins from this period, though, was self-imposed for only the next season (2010-2011), which illegalized two BCS bowls. Pryor was shown to be ineligible before this season started. This season, too, should've been wiped out!!

Oregon: Oregon shouldn't have been in this game either. The violations recently sanctioned by the NCAA, and largely-agreed to have been committed by the program, date back to this season in the football program and the previous season elsewhere in the athletic program, through 2011.

The (affirmed by the NCAA in June of 2013) self-imposed penalties for Oregon would be 2013-14 and 2014-15 probation and a small scholarship reduction for those two seasons and 2015-16, which the NCAA tacked a third year of probation for as well. The then-head coach was banned from the NCAA for two years, but he's now safely coaching the Philadelphia Eagles – as if by design.

Game never should've taken place. Both teams were irretrievably dirty.

Florida: See above. Can't think this season was much better.

Cincinnati: Cincinnati was (a smaller degree of) dirty, though, though it reported the violations itself. Impermissible telephone recruiting calls, to a smaller extent involving the football program. Far below anything in the Ohio State-Oregon game, but still worthy of mention. Two years probation for the athletic program and small recruiting contact restrictions on the football end. (Larger violations were found in women's basketball.)

Boise State: See above. This was the fifth year of the illegal practices.

TCU would become only the second team to legally crash the BCS.

Georgia Tech (Iowa's opponent) was forced to vacate all wins after November 24, 2009, meaning it could not have been recognized as the ACC champion, hence, ineligible for the Orange Bowl in 2010. A player was discovered to be receiving illegal benefits from a former Rambling Wreck player who was an agent. This ineligibility cost Georgia Tech four years of probation (two left to serve), and the 2009 ACC Championship, which means they are out of the 2010 Orange Bowl.

Alabama: And Alabama was not bowl-banned this season for at least two major run-ins in the BCS Era... why??? Illegal acquisition of textbooks in 16 sports led to three years of probation.

(Especially because they were under probation when the textbook illegalities started!!)

2010-2011:

Rose Bowl: TCU won a game which effectively was illegally-played, not to the fault of them or their opponents, Wisconsin, who finally made their first legal BCS appearance, TCU winning 21-19.
Sugar Bowl: Illegally-played game.
Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma over Connecticut, 48-20.
Orange Bowl: Stanford 40 – Virginia Tech 12.

National Championship: In one of the most farcical contests in NCAA history, Cam Newton illegally leads Auburn to a 22-19 championship “win” over a similarly-illegal Oregon team.

Here's three more illegally-played games, though only fault can be found in two of them.

Rose Bowl/Sugar Bowl/Ohio State fiasco: The BCS reached it's ridiculous nadir when the Ohio State scandal blew up in the faces of the BCS when five Buckeye players were found ineligible for actions dating back at least two years, but still were allowed to play in the 2011 Sugar Bowl.

Later, Ohio State would be forced to vacate the entire season, including the Sugar Bowl, by the NCAA.

There was nothing on TCU, Wisconsin, or Arkansas that season. The problem is that Wisconsin only gained entry into the Rose Bowl because Ohio State was part of a three-way tie for the Big Ten championship that season with Michigan State. (This was before the institution of the Big Ten Championship Game. Under the rules then in place, since Ohio State and Michigan State did not play that season, Michigan State's victory over Wisconsin was ignored, and the final BCS rankings of that season placed the Badgers in the Rose Bowl.)

If Ohio State had properly been ruled ineligible for that game, Michigan State would've gained a rightful place into the Rose Bowl because of their victory over Wisconsin in the regular season. (Wisconsin probably would've replaced Ohio State in playing Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl.)

Auburn: The NCAA deliberately turned it's back on mounting evidence that Cam Newton was bought and paid for to bring a national championship to Auburn (even to the extent that, if Auburn had been punished, that the “Stalker's Principle” would've applied – if we can't have the BCS title, NO ONE CAN) through his father Cecil, as well as numerous reports that the FBI was investigating many payments and benefits to the Auburn football program, including casino benefits, perhaps involving legislators in the area.

Oregon: See above.

2011-2012:

Rose Bowl: Oregon illegally defeated Wisconsin, 45-38.
Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma State over Stanford, 41-38 in overtime.
Sugar Bowl: Michigan 23 – Virginia Tech 20 (overtime)
Orange Bowl: West Virginia breaks a BCS record, putting 70 points up on Clemson, winning 70-33.

National Championship: Alabama defeats LSU in the only intra-conference title tilt, 21-0.

Oregon: See above.

Michigan and West Virginia: Both on probation for the misconduct of Rich Rodriguez.

This was the first full year of three years of probation (this season being the last) for the Wolverines for practices under Rich Rodriguez the previous two seasons. These were the same types of violations Rodriguez committed at West Virginia! (Illegal practices and coaching outside NCAA guidelines.)

Ironically, this was the first year (of two) of West Virginia's probation – for the very same acts of illegal practices under Rich Rodriguez that Michigan was also under probation for at the same time!!

And this idiot is now still allowed to be coaching at Arizona!

Alabama and LSU: Honey Badger for LSU, Alabama's continued probation... Yeah, that's a clean game for you!!!

2012-2013:

Rose Bowl: Stanford 20 – Wisconsin 14
Orange Bowl: Florida State 31 – Northern Illinois 10
Sugar Bowl: In one of the biggest FU's in history, Florida laid down to Louisville because it believed it should've been where Notre Dame was, 33-23.
Fiesta Bowl: Oregon over Kansas State 35-17

National Championship: Alabama rolls a clearly-unfit Notre Dame side, 42-14.

Wisconsin: No fault of it's own, but it becomes the third Big Ten team to lose at least three consecutive Rose Bowls. Wisconsin had no right to be in the game, as the two best teams in their Big Ten division (and probably in the conference at large) both were ineligible, and both, IMHO, should've been Death Penalty'd.

Northern Illinois: And if there's any indication as to the complete dominance of the SEC in present college football, Northern Illinois actually qualified under the non-AQ rules for the BCS, although no sane person actually believed they belonged.

This occurred because of two facts: First, they were ranked in the top 16 (#15) and outranked at least one BCS conference champion (in fact, they did two: Wisconsin (not in the BCS Top 25) and Louisville (#21)). Second, the SEC had 6 of the top 10 rankings in the final 2012 BCS rankings, making it impossible to feasibly fill the required slots.

For the record, Northern Illinois has never been sanctioned to probation or above. They are only the seventh school to get a BCS berth in this manner (Stanford, Illinois, Iowa, Connecticut, Louisville, and Wake Forest are the other six).

Oregon: See above.

--

I have always believed there were two purposes to the BCS.

One was to prevent another BYU or Alcorn State from sniffing the title, at minimum.

The other was to get rid of the NCAA entirely for the top level of college football.

The first has succeeded, and, if everything including today's Johnny Manziel fellatio-fest on ESPN is an indication, the second is soon to as well.