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Q&A Session: The 2012 BCS and College Football Season
Some of the more common questions about the upcoming 2012 college football season answered here:
Q. Playoffs! They start this year, right?
A. Actually, no, sorry. The BCS still has the rule of the land and will continue to dictate the national champion in FBS college football until the 2014 season. This year (2012) and next year (2013) will look and feel just like years past under the BCS.
Q. When will the first BCS standings be released in 2012? What’s the rest of the release schedule?
A. The first BCS standings will be released the Sunday following Week 7 action, Oct. 14.
The BCS will then release rankings for the rest of the season as follows:
BCS Week Two: Oct. 21
BCS Week Three: Oct. 28
BCS Week Four: Nov. 4
BCS Week Five: Nov. 11
BCS Week Six: Nov. 18
BCS Week Seven: Nov. 25
Final BCS Standings: Dec. 2
Bowl pairings for the BCS and non-BCS bowls will also be released Dec. 2.
Q. What teams switched conferences this season?
A. The following 12 teams changed football conference affiliation before the start of the 2012 college football season:
Temple Owls — MAC to Big East
West Virginia Mountaineers — Big East to Big 12
TCU Horned Frogs — Mountain West to Big 12
Hawaii Warriors — WAC to Mountain West
Fresno State Bulldogs — WAC to Mountain West
Nevada Wolfpack — WAC to Mountain West
Texas State Bobcats — FCS Independent to WAC
UT San Antonio Roadrunners — FCS Independent to WAC
Texas A&M Aggies — Big 12 to SEC
Missouri Tigers — Big 12 to SEC
UMass Minutemen — FCS to MAC
South Alabama Jaguars — FCS Independent to Sun Belt
Q. What is this year’s BCS bowl selection order?
A. After conference contracts and the BCS title game requirements fill, the bowls will select at-large teams in this order:
1. Fiesta Bowl
2. Sugar Bowl
3. Orange Bowl
You can find more information about the BCS bowl selection process at the BCS Bowls page.
Q. What are the “automatically qualifying” BCS conferences?
A. There are six AQ BCS conferences, thus named because the champions of those conferences are automatically awarded BCS bowl bids. The six conferences are the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference (SEC).
Q. What are the “non-automatically qualifying” BCS conferences?
A. There are five non-AQ conferences, named as such because their champions do not automatically qualify for BCS bowl bids. However, one champion from the non-BCS conferences will qualify for a BCS bowl bid if they rank in the top 12 in the last BCS standings, or if a non-BCS conference champion ranks higher than any BCS conference champion ranked among the top 16.
The five non-BCS conferences are the Conference USA (C-USA), the Mountain West Conference (MWC), the Sun Belt Conference, the Mid-American Conference (MAC), and the Western Athletic Conferences (WAC).
Q. When are the conference championship games?
A. Conference championship games for the Pac-12, ACC, SEC, Big Ten, MAC and C-USA will be held during the last weekend of the college football season, between Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.
Q. Where is this year’s BCS National Championship Game?
A. The 2013 BCS National Championship Game will be played in Miami on January 7, 2013. For a full BCS schedule visit the schedule — BCS and Non-BCS — pages.
Q. Which teams are ineligible for postseason play in 2012?
A. Because of NCAA sanctions Ohio State, Penn State, UCF and North Carolina are ineligible for either conference postseason play or bowl games. Texas State, UT San Antonio, South Alabama and UMass, which are all in the midst of the transitional period from FCS to FBS, would be ineligible under previous years’ eligibility requirements.
A new contingency plan for a lack of bowl-eligible teams in 2012 has been put in place has changed that slightly. If there are less than 70 bowl eligible teams, these four — along with other teams with previously less than bowl eligible status — could be bowl bound.
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Projected BCS Standings: Alabama, Oregon to lead the way in first BCS rankings of 2012 →
