The BCS Is Dead ... R.I.P.

For all intents and purposes, the BCS era is over. There is still the championship game and so-called BCS bowls to be played, but as a mechanism to set up postseason play, it's already a museum piece.
The BCS will be missed.

For all its flaws, the BCS's biggest contribution to college football is that it made the sport national. After the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Rose Bowl grudgingly signed on in 1998, the attraction of No. 1 vs. No. 2 forced fans (and the media) to care about games outside of their own region. For powerhouse programs, it was no longer good enough just to win the conference championship.

Of course, the BCS had its problems and underwent constant tinkering that bordered on "making up stuff as we go" at times. It still gave us a split national championship (in 2003), a highly questionable title-game rematch (in 2011), and a few bogus bowl pairings. But overall, the BCS did its job probably better than could have been expected 16 years ago.

As someone who's followed the BCS from its inception and actively blogged about it since 2006, I have plenty to say about the good, bad and ugly of the era. In fact, I'll be writing a series that covers each of the BCS's 16 seasons, with retrospectives and how things might have worked out had there been a four-team playoff.

And as a tease, here is my view on the best and worst things of the BCS era:

(FULL ARTICLE @ BLEACHER REPORT)