Which college football team won the first BCS national championship at the end of the 1998 season?

The Tennessee Volunteers won the Southeastern Conference championship in 1998 and went on to defeat the Florida State Seminoles in the Fiesta Bowl for the first championship of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) era.

The Bowl Championship Series was the first effort of the National Collegiate Athletic Association to decide its champion via an on-the-field contest instead of its previous model of polling coaches and sportswriters. The new model resulted in the nation's two top-ranked teams competing head to head for the national championship.

Philip Fulmer was the head coach of the Volunteers, and he was later named national Coach of the Year. Tee Martin, Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry, Peerless Price, Albert Haynesworth and Al Wilson starred for the Volunteers, and a total of 20 players were eventually drafted from the team to play in the National Football League.