Tramel: Utah gets pity party on Capitol Hill

Sometimes, you don't know who your friends are.

In the last five years, four mid-major college football teams, squadrons on the outside of college football's cartel, have played in Bowl Championship Series bowls. Utah in the 2009 Sugar and 2005 Fiesta. Hawaii in the 2008 Sugar. Boise State in the 2007 Fiesta.

In the 54 seasons before 2004, four mid-majors made BCS bowls or the high-paying, New Year's Day bowls that eventually formed the BCS: Air Force in the 1959 Cotton and 1971 Sugar, Wyoming in the 1968 Sugar and Louisville in the 1991 Fiesta.

So tell me again why on Tuesday a Mountain West Conference lawyer sat on Capitol Hill and did what so many lawyers before him have done. Asked Congress to investigate what he believes is an antitrust violation.

Never mind that Congress couldn't get to the bottom of a purse snatching on Mayberry's Main Street.

Why would the Mountain West try to take down the BCS? The BCS has been good to the Mountain West and the Western Athletic Conference. The BCS is the friend of the Utahs and Brigham Youngs and Fresno States.

The BCS did more in half a decade for the profile and standing of the mid-majors than any single coach, player, school or system did in the half century before, with the exception of BYU coaching legend LaVell Edwards.

The testimony Tuesday in Washington was all show. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) gaveled the Senate Judiciary subcommittee to order but quickly left. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) stayed a couple of minutes. That left only one senator, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch, to hear witnesses.

A lawyer for each side debated whether the BCS breaks the Sherman Antitrust Act, then school leaders for each side, Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman and Utah president Michael Young, offered their takes.

When the U.S. House staged a similar hearing in May, three committee members appeared. We all have asked the question doesn't Congress have better things to do? The answer obviously is yes, judging by the attendance at the subcommittee hearings.

This was a Utah pity party, nothing more. I'm a longtime supporter of the Mountain West Conference. I advocate an automatic BCS berth for the Mountain West, and I annually rip the NCAA basketball committee for short-changing the mid-majors.

I'm not even anti-playoff, so long as it's an 11-team playoff that includes all the conference champions. But Congress can't fix anything, and the Mountain West has limited credibility in this case.