Call it the ever-spiraling vortex of expectations.

When I hear from someone who doesn't like what I write, he or she will ask, "Why did you waste time and ink on that subject when there are so many more important things to write about?"

You can rarely trump this criticism. If I wrote about, say, Somalian pirates, someone inevitably would say children dying in Gaza are more important. You can't win.

Which is why I feel a little sympathy for Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who will be convening a meeting of his staff sometime soon to discuss whether it would be worthwhile to sue college football for antitrust violations because the University of Utah can't win a national championship.

Why in the name of everything illegal would the state's top law enforcer spend time and money on a game many social scientists will tell you gets far more attention and reverence in this country than it deserves?

Turns out he's heard that question a lot in recent days, including from broadcasters on ESPN. He's been on a radio talk show in St. Louis and has done numerous interviews both inside Utah and out. The interesting thing is that he didn't have to do much to stir things up.

"I didn't hold a press conference to say we're going after this," he told me. "I sent out a Twitter, for crying out loud."

That's Twitter, as in www.twitter.com. It's a Web site on which people post small messages about what they are doing or thinking. Each post is limited to 140 characters. When Shurtleff was at the Sugar Bowl watching the Utes defeat Alabama, he came up one character too long with this emotional post: "Only sad thing is that because of the illegal BCS monopoly, a team with HEART and GUTS and GRIT like Utah, will never be given the chanc..."

But it was enough to get people's attention, which proves that someone out there thinks college football is important.

To be clear, he is looking into the question of whether the Bowl Championship Series violates antitrust laws because it gives schools in only six conferences the chance to play for a championship. Utah has twice gotten an at-large bid to play in a BCS bowl, but neither time did it have a chance to be No. 1, no matter the outcome. This year, that was especially frustrating as the Utes dominated No. 4-ranked Alabama. They might well have defeated either Florida or Oklahoma, who did play for the championship on Thursday.

But, although he admits to being a huge sports fan, Shurtleff says this is about more than just a game.