COLLEGE FOOTBALL BCS leaders to meet today to discuss possible changes in postseason play

The'll meet with five I-A conferences that want to improve their access.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
If the leaders of the Bowl Championship Series don't come to a resolution with the system's critics at a meeting today, Utah's attorney general might call for an antitrust investigation.
Mark Shurtleff sent a letter Thursday to New York's attorney general, Elliott Spitzer, the chairman of the Antitrust Committee of the National Association of Attorneys General, criticizing the postseason system in major college football.
Leaders from the six conferences that started the BCS in 1998 will meet today in New Orleans with representatives of the five Division I-A conferences that are trying to improve their access to the nation's most lucrative bowl games.
"I am glad to see that both the presidents of the BCS and non-BCS schools are committed to resolving this situation fairly. I look forward to the outcome of the presidents' meeting," Shurtleff wrote in the letter, obtained by The Associated Press.
Investigation threatened
"If a resolution does not emerge from that meeting, I will consider formally requesting that the Antitrust Committee open an investigation to examine whether or not competition is restrained and consumers are harmed under the current BCS arrangement."
Details of the letter were first reported Saturday by The New York Times.
Oregon president Dave Frohnmayer, a member of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee and the former attorney general of Oregon, said he didn't think this was an issue his former organization should get involved in.
"Clearly this is not an antitrust violation," he said. "I'm very happy to talk to any attorneys general if I need to. I can't believe the association would want to take up an issue that would be as divisive internally as this one."
Shurtleff represents a state that is home to three schools -- BYU, Utah and Utah State -- that are on the outside of the BCS. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, a BYU graduate, was outspoken in his criticism of the system at a Senate hearing last month.
Access is big issue
Questions about access to the BCS have been a big issue in college football since the summer, when Tulane president Scott Cowen started the Coalition for Athletics Reform in an effort to change the system.
The two sides met in September in Chicago and are expected to exchange ideas Sunday. The current BCS contract expires after the 2006 bowls and negotiations will begin next year on a new system.
Created in 1998 by the six most powerful conferences, the BCS guarantees the champions of those leagues -- the Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-10 -- will play in one of the four most lucrative postseason bowl games, leaving only two at-large berths.
One of those bowls pits the top two teams in the BCS standings in a championship game, which will be the Sugar Bowl this season. The Orange, Fiesta and Rose bowls host the other games.
Smaller schools complain
Smaller schools complain that the BCS makes it impossible for them to win the national championship and puts them at a financial and recruiting disadvantage.
The BCS bowls generate more than $110 million a year for the big conferences. The BCS gives about $6 million a year to smaller conferences.
However, in the 20 years before the BCS started, only one school other than independent Notre Dame that's not currently in the six conferences played in one of those four bowls.