The 1998 NCAA Division I-A football season was the first of the Bowl Championship Series, which saw Tennessee win the national championship, one year after star quarterback Peyton Manning left for the NFL. The Volunteers defeated the Florida State Seminoles 23-16 in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Arizona to secure the inaugural BCS National Championship. However, like the Bowl Coalition, the bowls not hosting the national championship would retain their traditional tie-ins. Army broke away from almost one hundred years of tradition as an independent, joining Conference USA