Last season marked the first year in which the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) utilized its new postseason format of a four-team playoff to determine the FBS national champion. This current playoff format replaced the 16-year-old Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system which was used from 1998-2014. Although the new format ran into some resistance last season when the No.4 Ohio State Buckeyes beat out two other deserving programs in No.5 Baylor and No.6 Texas Christian for the final playoff position; by and large, the playoff structure has been greeted with widely positive reviews and high praise. The new playoff format differs greatly from the old BCS system in that its rankings are determined entirely by human polls rather than the BCS’s combination of human polls and computer statistics. The BCS’s computer element was instituted at the system’s inception in order to reduce voter bias and to provide a more objective viewpoint on a team’s overall rating. Oddly enough, it was the computer’s impartial calculations based on algorithms, rather than the human polls, which caused the most problems for the BCS. One such BCS computer catastrophe came in the year 2003. On the morning of Dec. 6, 2003, the college football landscape was at peace. The Oklahoma Sooners (12-0) were ranked No.1 in the BCS polls and were just one win away from clinching a spot in the BCS National Championship game. Following the Sooners in the polls were two teams with one loss in No.2 Southern California and No.3 Louisiana State. On the eve of game day, it was highly estimated that Oklahoma and USC would be on a collision course for the national title if the two sides could win their final games…
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