Washington ? The Bowl Championship Series shuts out too many schools in its goal of crowning a college football champion and needs to be repaired, senators told representatives of the bowl system Wednesday.

“I don’t know if you guys know how it looks to fans of teams that aren’t part of this system,” said Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. “It looks un-American. It really does. It looks unfair. It looks like a rigged deal.”

Created in 1998 by the six most powerful college conferences, the BCS guarantees that the champions of those conferences will play in one of the four most lucrative postseason bowl games, leaving only two at-large berths.

NCAA President Myles Brand said he was open to a system that would be more inclusive, but did not believe there was a need for radical changes or adoption of a playoff system.

Former BYU coach LaVell Edwards said the BCS system also made it harder for teams outside the alliance to recruit, since there was little chance the players would be able to compete for a national championship.

Division I-A football is the only college sport not to have a playoff system.

BYU, which won the national championship in 1984, is the only team other than Notre Dame outside the six BCS conferences to have won a national championship since 1945.

In the 20 years before the BCS started, only one school other than Notre Dame that is not currently in the Big East, ACC, Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 or Pac-10 played in one of the series’ four bowls.