Is anyone else planning on watching any BCS games? If so, which ones? I'll watch them, if I can - as in, I doubt I'll be able to find more than one or two other people to watch them with me, and if something comes up (ie, snowboarding), I'll do that instead of watching the games.
That said, I'll try and watch the Rose Bowl and the National Championship, and maybe the Sugar Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl.
Also, it took me about 97 hours but I think I finally figured out how they decide who gets to play in bowl games ... www.bcsfootball.org is actually pretty informative!
Apparently those ranked #1 and #2 automatically play for the National Championship (makes sense); the SEC champion automatically plays in the Sugar Bowl; the ACC champion automatically plays in the Orange Bowl; the Big-12 champion automatically plays in the Fiesta Bowl; and the Big-10 and Pac-10 champions automatically play in the Rose Bowl.
If the bowl's designated team is instead playing in the national championship, they get to pick a replacement. After picking replacements, they invite another team, if need be. There are 6 to 10 automatic qualifiers, who must be invited to a bowl game. As a bare minimum, a team has to have won 9 games and be ranked in the top 14 to get an invite to a bowl game, without qualifying automatically. But, that is the highly-simplified version :roll:
So for this season ...
Ohio State (Big-10 champ) and Florida (SEC champ) are ranked 1st and 2nd respectively, so they're in the championship.
The Rose Bowl automatically gets USC (Pac-10 champ; ranked 5th).
The Orange Bowl automatically gets Wake Forest (ACC champ; 14th).
The Fiesta Bowl automatically gets Oklahoma (Big-12 champ; 10th).
Louisville is the Big East champ (6th), so they automatically qualify for a bowl game.
Boise State (WAC champ; 8th) automatically qualifies for a bowl game, because they're the highest-ranked out of the champions of the WAC, MAC (Central Michigan), MWC (BYU; 20th), SBC (Troy), and C-USA (Houston).
Michigan (Big-10; 3rd) automatically qualifies because they're from the Big-10 (ie, a conference whose champion automatically gets invited to a bowl) AND because they're ranked 3rd.
Since the Rose Bowl is supposed to get the Big-10 champ (Ohio St), but Ohio St is ranked #1, they got first dibs on who to invite as a replacement - and they invited Michigan.
Since the Sugar Bowl is supposed to get the SEC champ (Florida), but Florida is ranked #2, they got to make the next invitation - and they invited LSU from the SEC (who didn't have automatic qualification, but were allowed to be considered since they went 10-2 and because they're ranked in the top 14 (4th)).
The Sugar Bowl also got to make the next invite, because this bowl is after the Orange and Fiesta Bowls (the three rotate each year). So, they invited Notre Dame, who finished 10-2 and are ranked 11th.
The Orange Bowl got to make the invite after that (since it's between the Sugar and Fiesta Bowls this year), and they invited Louisville - because they had to pick one of the two remaining automatic qualifiers.
Lastly, the Fiesta Bowl invited Boise State, the lone remaining automatic qualifier.
To throw a wrench into the mix, those running the conferences can then re-arrange the matchups if they like ... who knows if they did :roll:
So this year, there's the Rose Bowl between USC and Michigan on Jan 1; the Fiesta Bowl between Oklahoma and Boise State later the same day; the Orange Bowl between Louisville and Wake Forest on the 2nd; the Sugar Bowl between LSU and Notre Dame on the 3rd; and the National Championship (at the same location as the Fiesta Bowl; it too rotates each year) between Ohio State and Florida on the 8th. Could be the one time I make a point of watching American football on a Monday night!
(btw: ACC = Atlantic Coast Conf.; C-USA = Conference USA; MAC = Mid-American Conf.; MWC = Mountain West Conf.; SEC = Southeastern Conf.; SBC = Sun Belt Conf.; and WAC = Western Athletic Conf. And BCS = Bowl Championship Series )
Sorry if you're not interested in reading all that, but after spending 97 hours learning it, I'm gonna make sure I do something with it (or at the very least, show that I know it!)