[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/03/31/bcs.trophy.getty.art.jpg caption="Congress is now debating how college football teams will compete to become national champions."]

March Madness and who will rule college basketball is topic number one right now in the sports world. So why exactly are the Senate, the House, and even the President also talking up another game?

Three big letters: BCS. That’s why.

BCS stands for the college football “Bowl Championship Series”. There may be nothing more controversial in the intercollegiate athletics than the way the football champion is crowned every year.

Unlike all other major college sports, football does not have a series of playoff games that result in the last man standing. Instead they use a complicated formula based on polls to determine team rankings. At the end of the season, the 2 teams with the highest rankings play each other in one of the major bowls games to determine who actually is number one. The other teams ranked below them play in other bowls, but the winner of the top bowl game has always been crowned national champion. The past season it was Florida, which was ranked #1, beating Oklahoma, which was ranked #2, by the score 24-14. Read the story.

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