Hey, Orrin Hatch still wants to bring down the BCS ‘theifdom,’ too

So, yeah, the Department of Justice's latest inquiry into the BCS as an illegal monopoly seems to have sparked by economists and persistent state politicians, not its many opponents on Capitol Hill. (After all, the Congressmen have been slightly occupied lately.) But lest you forget: It was Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch who originally went out of his way to put the BCS on the DOJ's radar in 2009.

And as he told the Fox Business Network earlier today, he still plans to see the Series to its grave:

"My understanding is they are going to go forward and this is the first step. Look, 87 percent of the BCS money goes to the privileged conferences. That amounts to billions of dollars. Only about 12 percent goes to the non-privileged conferences. It is very unfair and violative of the anti-trust laws.

"You saw what happened out of the Fiesta Bowl. Some of these people treat the BCS as their own theifdom where they can rip all the money out of it that they want to and it's billions of dollars. I think the Justice Department is totally responsible in going into this and looking at it, and I don't see how they can't conclude anything but that this is violative of the antitrust laws.

"We do need to go to a playoff system that really would work like all the other sports that we have, and frankly, by doing that, it would be more fair and more balanced. The unprivileged conferences would be treated more fairly and in the end I think we would have a better system."

Mmmm, that's some good old-fashioned BCS hatin' if I've ever seen it. All we need now is an update on Rep. Joe Barton's anti-BCS bill in the House Energy and Commerce Committee and a few people comparing the Series to Communism, McCarthy style, and it'll be like we're living through the Playoff Summer of 2009 all over again.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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