Fairness of BCS debated

Sen. Orrin Hatch demanded to know, from sworn witnesses before the Senate on Tuesday, what else the undefeated 2008 University of Utah football team possibly could have done for a chance to play in last season's national championship game of the Bowl Championship Series.

U. President Michael Young, who attended the hearing, said that only one thing could have helped Utah: "If we had been part of an automatic-qualifying conference, I suspect we would have had an opportunity to play for the championship." But only half the nation's teams are in such conferences of traditional football powers. Utah is not.

University of Nebraska Chancellor Harvey Perlman, a member of the BCS oversight committee, said, "It's hard to respond to this without appearing to be disrespectful of Utah," but he essentially said the Utah school played a powder-puff schedule compared to teams in automatic-berth conferences.

"There is realistically something that Utah could do. They could have played the schedule that Nebraska played last year, where we played Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Missouri, all of them ranked in the Top 5," he said.

But Young shot back, "I do appreciate the tremendous football teams that Nebraska fields and wish that they were willing to play us." He added Utah played many ranked teams, that its Mountain West conference had the best inter-conference record in the nation, and three of its teams were higher ranked than some BCS conference champs.

The exchanges showed, in short, the arguments made for and against the BCS in a Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee hearing Tuesday.

The BCS argued that traditionally powerful conferences have earned the advantages it gives them. Representatives of Utah, the Mountain West Conference and Hatch said the BCS violates antitrust laws by blocking half the nation's teams — those outside automatic-qualifying conferences — from any realistic shot at a national championship.

"I would not be here today if all universities had a realistic opportunity to compete for the national championship and if the BCS revenues were equitably distributed among the institutions," Young testified. "However, those are not the facts."

He said universities from automatic-qualifying conferences designed the system to guarantee that they receive at least "nine of the 10 berths available in the most prestigious and lucrative bowls, known as the BCS bowls, regardless of their performance on the field."