For 16 years, calls of “We were snubbed” echoed across college football as fans longingly watched another team play for a national championship while their team sat at home. Historically, the sport is no stranger to postseason controversy—witness 1973 Michigan, which was held out of the Rose Bowl by a vote in favor of archrival Ohio State—but no other system consistently broke the hearts of fans quite like the BCS.
As the BCS’s 20th anniversary arrives, we rank the 10 best No. 3 finishers in the rankings, the teams that almost went down in history and maybe could have made noise if the four-team playoff had arrived earlier.