No Stripping

Since the end of Monday night’s BCS National Championship game, I have heard nonstop chatter about Cam Newton, Auburn University, and whether or not the Tigers’ championship will be stripped from them one day. This talk annoys me. It is nothing but hot air. It should be nothing more than sports talk radio fodder, but I’ve seen this discussion in the mainstream media as well. ESPN Radio’s Mike Golic and Mike Greenburg spent my entire morning commute to work discussing it yesterday. Fox Sports’ Thayer Evans wrote about it. Others have, too. And it frustrates me. Any discussion of the topic is an irresponsible act. The men and women who cover college football should know better. Apparently, a large number of them do not.

The first thing that must be recognized is that the NCAA cannot strip Auburn of its national championship. The NCAA can’t take away something that does not actually exist. The NCAA neither determines nor declares a national champion at the highest level of college football. The level formerly known as Division I-AA is now called Division I—Football Championship Subdivision because the NCAA determines and recognizes a champion at the end of the season. The highest level of college football, Division I—Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A) has no official champion. That is why you hear the terms such as mythical national champion, consensus national champion, claimed national championships, disputed national championship, and split national championship.

This is not new. The NCAA has never determined a champion for Division I-A. National champions are determined solely by outside organizations. The NCAA is neither affiliated with nor has any control over any of these organizations. Not a one. There are a million and one polls out there, but the ones that are most widely known and recognized as “true” national championship polls are the Associated Press and the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’. These are the organizations that determine who people consider the national champion. But, as I said before, these polls are not run by the NCAA.

Furthermore, neither of these organizations awards a national championship. Instead, they submit ballots and release a poll following the bowl season. The coaches do agree to vote the winner of the BCS National Championship Game as the #1 team in their final poll. The top ranked team in the final coaches’ poll is awarded the American Football Coaches Association trophy. Again, however, this trophy is not awarded by the NCAA. The NCAA has no dominion over the trophy, no say in who can or cannot receive the trophy. As the AP does not award a championship, there is no championship for anyone, let alone the NCAA, to take away. Shoot, before 1968, the AP did not even wait until bowl season to relase its final poll. The Division I—FBS national championship is mythical. It is a fiction that is given life by people.

I know what you’re thinking. What about the BCS? The Bowl Championship Series is another entity that exists outside of the NCAA. The BCS isn’t even an actual organization. The BCS is merely a coalition of the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Fiesta Bowl. These four bowls are not NCAA-sanctioned events (actually, no bowls are sanctioned by the NCAA). When it comes to bowls, the NCAA’s involvement is limited to two things: it determines which teams are eligible to play in bowls and it determines which bowls are can host bowl eligible teams. That’s it.

Each of these four bowls that make up the BCS are run by private organizations. The BCS itself is a consortium of private organizations. The NCAA is not one of those organizations. But the BCS and the NCAA have something in common. Despite holding an event named the BCS National Championship Game, the BCS does not award a national championship either. It’s just a game.

Now you see that all the talk about stripping Auburn of its national championship is just talk. Auburn is the consensus national champion, but they have not won a national championship. There is nothing for the NCAA, or anyone else, to strip.