I've made it clear that I believe Congress is wasting its time discussing the BCS and college football, and apparently, members of Congress agree.

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 Sen. Chuck Schumer briefly popped in, but didn't ask any questions. It was, for the most part, Hatch's show.

That would be Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who also said to reporters that the notion that the Congressional hearing was simply political pandering is "just bull."

Of course, it looks like a significant portion of the hearing consisted of Hatch defending his home state Utah Utes against Nebraska chancellor and chairman of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee Harvey Perlman.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank offers some play-by-play of the event.

Let's see what Hatch had to say...

"It's hard to imagine what more Utah could have done with its season in search of a national championship, yet under the BCS system, they were eliminated from such consideration before the season even started."

No, Utah would have played for the national championship had it been voted in. Hatch might want to start by convincing Utah's own coach Kyle Wittingham and fellow coaches in the Mountain West.

Look, the BCS is obviously a tremendously flawed system that nobody outside of the conference commissioners and Harvey Perlmans of the world seems to like.

With that said, without the BCS, Utah probably would've been stuck in the Las Vegas Bowl or the Poinsettia Bowl. Instead, it got the national stage in primetime in the Sugar Bowl against a team from the SEC. Before taking Hawaii and Utah in the last two seasons, the last time the Sugar Bowl had hosted a team not currently in one of the six major conferences (or Notre Dame) was 1971, when Tennessee beat Air Force.

Perlman has said that actual action by the government would probably force college football to revert back to the old system, with no guaranteed No. 1 vs. No. 2 game. In that situation, it the biggest bowls would likely sign contracts with the biggest conferences, and teams like Utah would be back to playing in the Liberty Bowl and the Poinsettia Bowl.

But now, we also get to see just how much Mountain West and the WAC (which is home to Utah's fellow BCS buster Boise State) are willing to stand up for themselves.

The two conferences have yet to sign the BCS's new contract with ESPN, which goes into effect in 2010. They have a Thursday deadline to decide. If they don't sign the deal, they'll be left out of the BCS/ESPN money and would not be considered for any of the five BCS bowl games.

We know what the senior senator from Utah would probably do, but don't expect the Mountain West and WAC to follow through and not sign. My guess is the BCS would happily continue without them.

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Quick hits:
-South Carolina has reported 14 secondary violations, although just three are courtesy of the football program. One of these horrifying transgressions includes: "An ineligible player was provided transportation to an away game."

No word on whether or not Lane Kiffin is thinking of illegally transporting two ineligible players across the Florida border for Tennessee's game with Steve Spurrier's former squad in an attempt to upstage the Ol' Ball Coach.

-Ole Miss football will be the focus of a new reality show called "Gridiron U." It will air on TruTV, which I have honestly never heard of. According to Wikipedia, it is apparently the network formerly known as Court TV. Good thing the focus of the show isn't Florida's football team, otherwise the network might have to revert back to the old Court TV name.

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Video of the day:
A football trick play at its finest:

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-Matt Brown