It seems silly to have to go back to the records to come up with statistics on your own journalism career, but when you have been around long enough …

Five seconds ago I realized that I covered six of the first nine BCS college football championships games.

Did I just take a moment and cast my mind back?

No. By going back and checking the history of the games.

I saw only video highlights of tonight’s game, and I was pleased by the way it turned out, because my first goal for the 2013 college football season was for any team not a member of the SEC to win the national championship.

Final: Florida State 34, Auburn 31.

OK, it isn’t like Florida State has DNA utterly different from the SEC teams all around Tallahassee … but they are members of the ACC, so for this year, the Seminoles will do.

To look at the boxscore, you wonder how FSU won. Auburn had more yards, converted far more third downs and rushed for far more yards than did FSU (which appeared to get defeated, mostly, in the lines).

But Florida State got this big play on special teams, and had the last real crack at scoring, and those two touchdowns made the difference in what looked like a fun game — from the 10-minute ESPN highlight video, anyway.

(In real life, it probably lasted four-plus hours, and left fans wondering, again, why college games go on for so bloody long.)

So, that is the end of the BCS. Perhaps no football idea ever was so roundly criticized, from the moment of conception till the day it ended, but if you go back and check the 16 games decided by the BCS, it’s not as if numerous crimes against humanity were committed.

Generally, the right two teams were in the game, and that was the point of the whole exercise. Next year, it’s a four-team playoff, and whoever is fifth is gonna cry that they were robbed.

So, looking at the list to remind myself of things I saw, and then patching in some memories …

1998 season champion (early 1999): Tennessee 23, Florida State 16. My colleague Mike Davis and I made the drive over to Tempe, Ariz., from SoCal, and then turned around and came back in the middle of the night. I remember a lot of orange in downtown Tempe, and I also remember preferring to see Tennessee win because at the time Florida State had sort of a bandit-program thing going on.

2001: The big game was in the Rose Bowl; an easy drive. Nebraska versus Miami, and it turned out like we all expected – with the Cornhuskers unable to match Miami’s speed and skill. Final: 37-14.

2002: Ohio State 31, Miami 24, in Tempe. My son went with me, I’m almost sure, and we sat on the roof of the press box. It was cold. I think we could see New Mexico, in the distance. I wanted Ohio State to win, because I’ve never liked Miami. That was the year of Maurice Clarett, at OSU. The only year, really, of Maurice Clarett. Went double overtime, and OSU survived the first OT only thanks to a debatable pass interference call on fourth-and-goal.

2004: USC 55, Oklahoma 19. Maybe the zenith of Pete Carroll’s USC years. A butt-kicking from start to finish. A victory vacated because of the Reggie Bush stuff, which I have less tolerance for as we go along, because I am convinced every prominent college football program bends the rules. I mean, the SEC? C’mon. Anyway, traveled to Miami to see this one, and it was a rush.

2005: Texas 41, USC 38. The best BCS title game. At the Rose Bowl. USC’s 34-game winning streak ended because they couldn’t stop Vince Young, and specifically on fourth-and-5 from the 9 with about 25 seconds to play. The USC defense was exhausted. That was to be the highlight of Young’s career; he was basically a bust as a pro; hell of a college player, though.

2006: Florida 41, Ohio State 14. Tim Tebow’s Gators overwhelmed unbeaten Ohio State, as the Big Ten didn’t show up for a big game. (Again.) It started with Ted Ginn Jr., Ohio State’s one elite offensive player, returning the opening kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown, but he was knocked out of the game while teammates mobbed him (which the embarrassed Buckeyes didn’t admit to till the next day), and it was all downhill from there. Played at Glendale in the marvelous new stadium there with the retractable roof.

That was the last BCS final I saw, and it was  Game 1 of seven consecutive victories for SEC teams.

Florida State finally ended that.

Next year, in the new system, maybe we can aspire to have a team (any team) from outside the old Confederacy win this thing.

That’s a lot to ask for, I know.