The topics most commonly discussed are, "Which current bowl game is going to become a BCS game?" and "Is it an extra game for the winners of the BCS games to play for the championship?".  After hearing an assortment of fictitious responses, I decided to put to rest some of the debate by explaining exactly how the extra BCS game will work and how it will affect the college football season.

   Let me begin with a breakdown of the BCS changes that will take effect starting with the 2006 season:

 

1) As stated above, there will now be a total of five BCS games.

 

2) The fifth game will be played as a championship, approximately one week after the four current BCS match-ups.  It will not, however, match the winners of any of the other four games.  It will keep the same characteristics as the current BCS championship game (#1 vs. #2 in the BCS Standings), but will be played separate from the other bowls. 

 

3) The other four bowl games will keep the same conference tie-ins.  The eligible teams will include the current automatic qualifiers (winners of the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac 10, SEC) and four at-large bids, as opposed to two at-large bids previously.

 

4) The championship game will rotate between the four sites (Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar), which allows each stadium to host two BCS games each year.  Again, the championship match will be held roughly one week after the site's traditional bowl game. 

 

   What does all this mean?  It means that next year's BCS bowl match-ups will probably look quite a bit different than what we're used to, and that may not necessarily be a good thing.

   On the surface, it seems to eliminate some of the annual controversy regarding which teams are awarded the coveted at-large BCS bids.  On the other hand, recent history has shown us that the teams that didn't quite make it into the BCS probably didn't deserve to. 

  Take a look at Cal getting steamrolled by Texas Tech in the 2004 Holiday Bowl, Oregon losing to an offensively-inept Oklahoma team in the '05 Holiday Bowl or Miami getting absolutely throttled by LSU in the '05 Peach Bowl. 

   Did those teams take the day off mentally due to feeling shafted by not getting into the BCS?  Possibly.  Did they do anything to prove that they belonged in the BCS?  No way.

   What the changes will do is make the end of the regular season even more interesting, as if it needed any more drama.  Teams on the brink of the top ten will have just a little more motivation, knowing that an impressive season-ending win over (insert rival here) might be just enough to push them into a spot in the BCS, as well as a hefty paycheck.

   It will also help (slightly) to correct some of the bizarre conference match-ups we've seen in recent bowl games.  With one of the BCS games no longer losing out on its tie-ins due to its championship obligations, we should see less of the Oklahoma-Washington State type match-ups that throw historical context out the window and create little or no national interest.

   The reasons stated above, however, are only minor side-effects in the overall scheme of things.  The real reason behind the change, of course, is that it allows the NCAA to sidestep a legal nightmare by giving the little guy (i.e., non-BCS teams) a hypothetical shot at glory. 

   Recent teams such as Miami (OH), Boise State and TCU have finished with impressive records but ended up in mid-December bowl games due to a general lack of national recognition.  The addition of two at-large bids to the BCS mix cooled talks of a lawsuit from the non-BCS school presidents by giving a small sliver of hope to those potential one-loss Cinderella's. 

   Will one of those teams ever play for the national championship?  No, not with the current set-up.  If Utah couldn't do it in 2004, no one will.  Non-BCS teams just don't start high enough in the pre-season pools to realistically make the jump to #1 or #2.  Sure, what those presidents really wanted was just a slice of the BCS pie, but isn't the whole purpose of the system to decide a national champion?

  Fresno State would have made things interesting back in 2001, but even that would have required running a ridiculous non-conference schedule (which they did), going undefeated in conference (which they didn't) and having all the teams near the top of the polls (like Nebraska) lose late and hopefully drop behind them in the BCS rankings.  The chances of all those things happening? Slim to none.