Notre Dame Football: Would Brian Kelly have titles in a different era?

BCS and CFP

The reason the BCS, which replaced the Bowl Alliance, lasted more than a couple of years was that they got the Rose Bowl, and therefore the Big 10 and PAC-10. Obviously, the BCS still didn’t work. It was controversial, limited opportunities, had anti-trust suits against it, would send multiple SEC teams who had already played to the same National Championship Game and was determined by largely secret math.

It didn’t work. It’s also how Notre Dame played for its first National Championship and was demolished under Brian Kelly.

A couple of years later, the move was made to a four-team College Football Playoff, which it is worth pointing out is not sanctioned by the NCAA itself. This was the major bowls coming together with the conferences to make an invitational tournament.

Notre Dame has been to two of these invitational tournaments, and neither of those worked out much better than their trip to the 2012-13 BCS National Championship Game.

In other words, the organization that runs college football (however poorly so) is still not in charge of saying who is best. Rather, it’s up to polls and the conferences themselves. This is, largely determined by financial lines, is why half of college football starts ineligible for the College Football Playoff.