The Computer Poll Uprising: Creators of the BCS's Most Controversial Component Look Back

When Richard Billingsley began ranking college football teams in the 1960s, he needed just a few things: a newspaper, a pen, paper, and his Olivetti hand-crank adding machine. It would be nearly 30 years before he had access to a computer. Thus for three decades, the future BCS computer pollster was something more like a notepad pollster. It doesn’t have the same ring.

In those days, Billingsley was merely a rabid college football fan in Houston whose rankings were good enough to be published in a neighborhood newspaper. Every Sunday, at about 8 a.m., he’d begin his work, which often took him all day. Sometimes, he had to wait until the Monday morning edition of the Houston Chronicle to…