AFCA National Championship Trophy
Source: Wikipedia

From ESPN: Alabama routs Notre Dame, wins 3rd BCS title in last 4 years: http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=330070333

Today, in the Discover BCS National Championship Game, the University of Alabama destroyed the University of Notre Dame, beating them 42-14, winning the college football national championship for the second time in a row.  This is Alabama‘s third BCS National Championship, and all of their BCS titles have come in the last four years.  The winning school of the BCS National Championship is presented with the AFCA National Championship Trophy, or Coaches’ Trophy.

If you haven’t heard, the American football championship structure for the NCAA (American colleges) is an absolute mess.  Technically, it is a competition among all of the teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).  The national championship is not administered by the NCAA and is the only NCAA sport in which this is the case.  The championship is awarded annually by various third-party organizations, and because of this is sometimes referred to as a “mythical national championship” and is no stranger to controversy.  The BCS system has been in place in one form or another since 1998.  Due to all of this, Alabama actually claims 15 NCAA Division I FBS championships.   Princeton University claims the most NCAA Division I FBS championships with 28.

American college football fans almost unanimously cheered an announcement in July of 2012 that a four-team playoff was formally approved by a presidential oversight committee, to begin in 2014 and last until at least 2025.