Reps. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) and Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) will announce Thursday a house resolution asking the Justice Department to investigate the college football Bowl Championship Series (BCS) for possible restraint of trade violations.

The BCS awards automatic bids to the six biggest college football conferences, along with an occasional at large bid from a smaller conference, in order to determine the national championship.

Along with time in the spotlight, schools that make BCS games get a share of the revenue generated by the games.

Abercrombie says the BCS, “restricts not just the opportunity to compete for the title, but access to the more than $185-million in post-season revenue to 66 teams in the six largest athletic conferences and Notre Dame, and denies the opportunity to 53 other Division I-A colleges and universities.”

Abercrombie is graduate of Union College, Simpson is a Utah State alum and Westmorland never finished college though took classes at Georgia State. None of those are BCS schools, though one has to wonder if Abercrombie would feel the same way if his home state University of Hawaii had not gotten crushed by BCS power Georgia.