Whatifsports.com's college football simulation database dates back to 1996. If you do the math, 1996-2010 adds up to only 15 national champions. Our Tournament of Champions bracket has room for 16 and therefore we elected to share the wealth like Michigan and Nebraska shared the national title in 1997. The co-champions were both allowed to participate in this simulation tournament.

We also encountered a few more hanging chads, if you will, that needed to be addressed before proceeding with the seeding of the 16-team field.

The first issue dealt with LSU who beat Oklahoma in the 2003 Sugar Bowl BCS National Championship Game. The Tigers finished first in the USA Today Coaches Poll, but second in the Associated Press Poll. The USC Trojans earned the AP votes needed to split the nation's opinion of the best team in the country. So, in order to determine which team should earn the right to compete in the Tournament of Champions, we conducted a sidebar simulation between the 2003 Tigers and Trojans 2,001 times.

2003 LSU vs. USC Runoff Simulation
Matchup	Win%	Avg Score
LSU Tigers	15.4	19
USC Trojans	84.6	33

Our second issue also dealt with the Trojans who have, for the time being, vacated their 2004 BCS National Championship after the NCAA ruled Reggie Bush received improper benefits. Now some believe the undefeated Auburn Tigers, and not the Oklahoma Sooners, deserved recognition for their 2004 campaign. The Sooners were beat 55-19 by the Trojans in the BCS title game. When the NCAA ruling against USC came down last summer, we simulated Oklahoma versus Auburn to learn if the Tigers were worthy of championship consideration. As you will learn by reading the article, our simulation engine concluded that the Tigers were not. With USC out, Oklahoma slid in as the 2004 national champion representative.

***Go to Tournament of Champions Bracket***

With the field of 16 selected, we created a round-robin simulation where each team played the other 51 times. Our college football simulation engine generated each team's overall winning percentage and average points scored per game. This college football power ranking was used to seed the 16-team field. The 2001 Miami Hurricanes finished the simulation with the top winning percentage ahead of talented programs like the 2009 Alabama Crimson Tide and 2008 Florida Gators. The Hurricanes are the Tournament of Champions number one seed.

Tournament of Champions Seeding Simulation
Seed	Team	Win%	Avg Score
1	2001 Miami (FL) Hurricanes	77.8	35.1
2	2009 Alabama Crimson Tide	74.6	32.1
3	2008 Florida Gators	68.8	32.4
4	2003 USC Trojans	61.1	30.9
5	2005 Texas Longhorns	63.7	30.5
6	2004 Oklahoma Sooners	59.0	29.9
7	1999 Florida State Seminoles	54.7	28.2
8	1996 Florida Gators	51.4	29.9
9	2000 Oklahoma Sooners	48.5	25.7
10	2006 Florida Gators	41.7	24.5
11	1998 Tennessee Volunteers	41.7	25.3
12	2002 Ohio State Buckeyes	37.4	23.7
13	1997 Michigan Wolverines	32.5	21.1
14	2007 LSU Tigers	31.2	23.9
15	2010 Auburn Tigers	25.7	25.7
16	1997 Nebraska Cornhuskers	25.2	24.4

***Go to Tournament of Champions Bracket***

Ryan Fowler is the Content Manager for Whatifsports.com. He can be reached at rfowler@whatifsports.com.