Just before Halloween, once again we're witnessing a scary aspect of college football: The blatant fraud that is the Bowl Championship Series.

University presidents should be ashamed. The hypocrisy and fiefdom of college football — brought on by the money-grabbing cronies that started the BCS — should be an embarrassment to institutions of higher learning that have evolved into liberal nests of thought and philosophy.

You have to look no further than the Big East, a charter member of the hallowed BCS, an elite six-conference Mafia that hijacked the college football championship.

Last January, Utah defeated Pittsburgh, a Big East team that had no business playing in the Fiesta Bowl. Undefeated Utah deserved a shot at Auburn, at the least. This year, the Big East — two years removed from losing Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College to the ACC — is once again poised to send an unqualified, undeserving and inflated football team to a $15 million BCS bowl.

The candidates? West Virginia, Rutgers and Pittsburgh. Only West Virginia is ranked, at No. 17. But what qualifies the Mountaineers for a BCS slot over 7-1 TCU from the Mountain West? Well, it's a contractual BCS tie to the Big East, which has been labeled the Big Least these days.

It's a connection — not an achievement. And that's just plain wrong.

Mike Bianchi at the Orlando Sentinel put it best: "For some ridiculous reason, the Big East has an automatic bid to the Bowl Championship Series, which is sort of like giving Larry the Cable Guy a membership to the Kennebunkport Canasta and Yacht Club."

Right now, West Virginia is 6-1, Rutgers is 5-2 and Pittsburgh stands 4-4.

Take Conference USA, the MWC and WAC. You could argue 5-1 UTEP, 7-1 TCU and 5-1 Fresno State deserve a BCS appearance more than any Big East team. But you'd never get the chance to prove it unless one of them ran the table like Utah did a year ago.

And that's what's wrong with the college football system. It's not only unfair, it doesn't make sense. The Big East is no more deserving to have an automatic BCS bid than the WAC, MWC and Conference USA.

Heading into the weekend, the Big East is 4-8 against other BCS leagues. Every other BCS member has at least two schools ranked higher than West Virginia.

In a year Utah or BYU doesn't have a chance at the controversial BCS, the chance to decry the injustice and greed isn't less important. It is the principle that counts, and the argument fits for Boise State, Fresno State and UTEP, as it would for the locals.