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This past summer the Bowl Championship Series, beginning its fourth season, continued its evolution and improvement, making a series of changes to its selection process and formula. Here are a series of questions and answers which hopefully should clarify the changes and procedures of the BCS.

Q. What changes were made this past year with the Bowl Championship Series?
A. The Bowl Championship Series made a number of improvements in the selection process and formula during the off-season including:
1. Adding two new computer polls-authored by Dr. Wesley Colley of the Lincoln Laboratory of MIT and Dr. Peter Wolfe of UCLA-- which include no margin of victory. The result leaves eight computer polls, four with no margin of victory included and four that have formulae which render excessive margin of victory (beyond 21-24 points) negligible. The high and low poll each week will be discarded, leaving the six remaining scores to be averaged.
2. Guaranteed that if the highest ranked at-Large team finished third or fourth in the final standings (but not both), it would receive an automatic selection to a BCS Bowl.
3. Added a quality win component to the formula which rewards teams for winning games against quality opponents.
4. Renewed the BCS television contract with ABC for four more years through the 2005 regular season and the 2006 bowl campaign.
5. Renewed the BCS bowl rotation with the same four bowl games for four more years with the national championship game going to the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl in January, 2003, the Nokia Sugar Bowl in 2004, the Fed Ex Orange Bowl in 2005 and the Rose Bowl in 2006.

Q. Are exempt games included in the BCS Standings? Are conference championship games?
A. Exempt and conference championship games will be included in all elements of the BCS standings. However, wins in exempt games and conference championship games will not be counted towards the nine-game victory total needed to qualify for the BCS At-Large selection pool. Further, if a team A defeats team B twice during the season (including exempt and conference championships), team A will receive quality points for only one victory.

Q. Why the concern over excessive margin of victory?
A. There was a perception by the general public, the media and the coaches that the computer poll calculations contained an excessive margin of victory, thus encouraging coaches to run up the score on their opponents. The American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) requested the BCS study this area. The BCS has decided that though the margin of victory calculations in the computer polls were a small part of the overall formula, it would be best to eliminate the perception of excessive margin of victory in the BCS standings. Thus the use of four computer polls that use no margin of victory in their calculations and four that render excessive margin of victory negligible after 21 or 24 points.

Q. Is excessive margin of victory eliminated from the standings?
A. In the computer polls it is, but it is not in the two subjective polls where excessive margin of victory have traditionally had the largest effect-the Associated Press writers poll and the USA TODAY football coaches poll.

Q. What's this quality point stuff?
A. The quality point factor rewards teams for defeating opponents which finish in the Top 15 of the final BCS standings, thus rewarding teams who not only schedule quality opponents, but defeat them as well. A team which defeats the top-ranked team in the final BCS standings receives a 1.5 point bonus. A win over the No. 15 BCS team earns just a 0.1 bonus. The points are subtracted from the team's total after the Associated Press and USA Today polls, the computer polls, the strength of schedule factor and any losses are calculated. The quality points will be calculated each week, with the value awarded changing each week as the teams move up or down in the rankings.

Q. When does the BCS release its standings? Why then?
A. The BCS will begin releasing its standings each week on Monday, Oct. 15 and every Monday thereafter until Sunday, December 2. The BCS will wait until the sixth week of the season to allow for enough games and data to make the computer calculations meaningful and to eliminate the possibility of early season irregularities.

Q. Who is eligible to participate in the BCS National Championship Game?
A. Any Division 1-A football team in the nation which finishes first or second in the final BCS Standings on Sunday, December 2.

Q. Where does the revenue come from for the Bowl Championship Series?
A. The BCS contract with ABC and the BCS agreements with the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the Nokia Sugar Bowl and the FedEx Orange Bowl supply the revenue. Last year the total BCS revenue was just over $75 million. This does not include proceeds from the Rose Bowl which pays the Big 10 and PAC 10 under a separate contract for their participation.

Q. Who receives revenue from the Bowl Championship Series?
A. The six conferences who comprise the BCS-the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12, the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten, the Big East and the PAC 10 share in varying degrees along with any independent or other conference team which earns selection. Additionally, $4.2 million is contributed to Division 1-A and 1-AA conferences to be used in support of the overall health of college football. Three Division 1-A conferences--the Western Athletic, the Mountain West and Conference USA--received $800,000 each last year, while a fourth, the Mid-American, received $600,000. Eight Division 1-AA leagues each received $150,000. Finally, the BCS pays an $100,000 stipend to the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame for administering the weekly BCS standings. At the end of the current eight-year BCS contract, over $40 million will be distributed to non-BCS conferences.

Q. Why make the BCS Standings so complicated? Why not just use an average of the writers and coaches polls?
A. The Football Writers Association of America has been on record as not being in favor of having the AP writers poll determine the national championship game opponents. There is a desire among the members of the BCS to be as fair as possible in choosing those opponents. The current formula balances the educated opinion of the national media who cover and the coaches who coach college football, with hard data from eight objective computer polls untainted by excessive margin of victory, while also placing greater emphasis than ever on the importance of strength of schedule and wins over opponents ranked among the nation's Top 15 football teams.

Q. As an independent, what kind of consideration does Notre Dame receive?
A. Notre Dame gets the same consideration as any other non-BCS team unless one or more teams from a non-BCS conference or an independent institution other than Notre Dame qualifies for automatic selection to a BCS bowl. Then Notre Dame would also qualify, providing the Irish are ranked in the BCS Top Ten or have won nine games excluding exempt games.

Q. Who actually runs the Bowl Championship Series?
A. The conference commissioners of the six equity conferences-the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big East, the Big 10, the Big 12, the PAC 10 and the Southeastern Conference-make decisions affecting the BCS jointly. This year Commissioner John Swofford and the Atlantic Coast Conference office begins its second year of administering the BCS. Commissioner Roy Kramer and the Southeastern Conference office administered the BCS in its first two years of existence (1998-99) and next year one of the four remaining equity conferences will likely administer the BCS for a two-year period (2002-2003).