WASHINGTON -- The message is the same, but Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch felt it was worth repeating: College football's Bowl Championship Series violates the Sherman Antitrust Act.

"I don't believe a plainer description of the BCS exists," Hatch said at a standing-room-only Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. The BCS "brings to mind the major Supreme Court decisions prohibiting price-fixing and horizontal restrictions on output," added Hatch, who ran the hearing.

"Frankly, there's an arrogance about the BCS that just drives me nuts," he told reporters. "Hopefully this hearing will open the door to have some people reconsider their positions. And if nothing else, the Justice Department ought to be looking at this." He said that it's clear to him that the BCS is in violation of antitrust laws.

Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said: "We're aware of his request and will respond as appropriate."

It's not the first time the fairness and legality of the BCS has been questioned, and it likely won't be the last.

Utah, which is in the Mountain West Conference along with Brigham Young University, was bypassed for last year's national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season. The title game featured Florida against Oklahoma -- each with one loss.

Under the BCS, some conferences get automatic bids to participate in big-money bowl games, including the title game, but the MWC and others do not. Critics argue that this system reduces competition and distributes money unequally.

But Harvey Perlman, chancellor of the University of Nebraska, said the BCS simply recognizes that the public wants to watch powerhouse college football teams such as his. Perlman, the new chairman of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, said the five conferences that don't get automatic bids do not add any revenue to the BCS.

At one point, Perlman prefaced a comment by saying he didn't want to sound disrespectful to Utah.

"Then you don't want to be in this room," Hatch quipped to laughter.

Perlman conceded that some teams, because of factors such as history or reputation, have a better chance to play in the national championship than others.

"The problem is that we don't all play each other, and there's no conceivable way" for that to happen, he said.

The topic of the fairness of the BCS has been hotly contested for years. BYU's football program is responsible, at least in part, for the very existence of the BCS. The Cougars were the only undefeated team in college football in 1984 and were declared the national champions in both polls (AP and UPI). The debate over whether or not BYU deserved the national title resulted in the eventual creation of the Bowl Alliance, then the Bowl Coalition and finally the BCS in 1998.

BYU had teams in 1997 (14-1) and 2001 (12-0 at one point) that threatened to break into the national championship picture and Utah posted unbeaten seasons in 2004 and 2008. But neither team was awarded the right to play for a national title.

Utah President Michael Young also attended the hearing.

"If we had been part of an automatic-qualifying conference [last season], I suspect we would have had an opportunity to play for the championship," he said. Instead, Utah defeated former No. 1 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.

Barry Brett, a lawyer who represents the Mountain West Conference, told Congress it would be in the public's best interest if the government investigated the system that determines football's No. 1 team. In written testimony, Brett called the BCS "a naked restraint imposed by a self-appointed cartel."

In May, MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson proposed a college football playoff plan to the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, but the plan was rejected. The MWC has yet to sign the new BCS television agreement with ESPN. A $125 million deal between the BCS and ESPN takes effect in 2010 would last through the bowls of 2014. At risk is millions of dollars in bowl revenue, so the MWC will likely be forced to sign the agreement.

It was the second congressional hearing on the BCS this year, following one in the House two months ago. At that hearing, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, warned the BCS to switch to a playoff system. If not, he said, Congress would move on his bill that would prevent the NCAA from calling a game a national championship unless it's the outcome of a playoff.

Although Tuesday's hearing attracted quite a few spectators, senators mostly stayed away. Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights, left a few minutes after starting the hearing. New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer briefly popped in, but didn't ask any questions.

It was, for the most part, Hatch's show.

In talking to reporters, he took umbrage at the suggestion that the hearing amounted to political pandering.

"That's just bull," he said.

• Daily Herald Sports Editor Darnell Dickson contributed to this report.

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