Washington ? Congress will step into the debate about the college football postseason with a hearing today that will include testimony from some of the sport’s most powerful figures.

Some schools shut out from the automatic bids in the Bowl Championship Series claim the system amounts to an illegal monopoly, giving the biggest schools the best shot at the lucrative bowl postseason.

But even one of the Bowl Championship Series’ most vocal foes wants Congress to stay out of it.

“Whatever issues may exist, it really should be worked among the university presidents without the intervention of Congress,” Tulane president Scott Cowen said.

He founded an anti-BCS organization designed to give schools such as Tulane a better shot at one of the big end-of-season bowl games.

Joining Cowen on the witness list at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the BCS are NCAA president Myles Brand, Big Ten commissioner James Delany and former NFL quarterback Steve Young.

While no one expects legislation to result, both supporters and detractors of the bowl system were hoping to put the best public face possible on their arguments.

Cowen’s Presidential Coalition for Athletic Reform and BCS representatives are to meet Monday in Chicago to discuss the series’ future. The BCS contract expires following the 2005 season.

The BCS was established before the 1998 season to determine the national champion by matching the top two teams in either the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl or Fiesta Bowl. The champions from the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10 and Southeastern conferences receive automatic bids. There are also two at-large bids.

Teams from non-BCS conferences are guaranteed a bid to one of the four bowl games if they are ranked in the top six. But in the system’s five-year history, no team from a non-BCS conference has played in one of the four games.

The projected revenue for the four 2004 BCS games is about $90 million. But if no team from outside the six BCS conferences makes one of the bowls, only about $6 million will go to the non-BCS schools.

Tulane went undefeated in 1998 but was excluded from the BCS bowls because it was in 11th place in the BCS standings.

• Toledo coach signs extension: Toledo coach Tom Amstutz, who has led the Rockets to two bowl appearances in his first two seasons, agreed to a two-year contract extension. Amstutz, 48, is under contract through the 2007.
• Nebraska kicker hurt: Nebraska kicker Dale Endorf not only has a torn knee ligament, he has a blood clot, his father said. Don Endorf said doctors discovered a blood clot in his son’s calf and that his son may be hospitalized five or six days.
• Ottney’s death a mystery: An autopsy Wednesday failed to determine the cause of the death of former Michigan State captain Brian Ottney. Ottney, 23, had a seizure and died Monday in Long Beach, Calif. Finding what killed Ottney will depend on the results of blood alcohol and other toxicology tests, said Lt. David Smith of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office.

“We won’t know for 8-to-12 weeks,” Smith said.

• Big East schools meet: The Big East hopes to decide by November whether its football-playing schools will split from the non-football programs. Representatives from both groups met Wednesday with commissioner Mike Tranghese to discuss the conference’s future makeup. The Big East is examining a possible realignment, because Miami and Virginia Tech will join the ACC at the start of the 2004-05 academic year. Among the options being considered: the schools with football programs would depart and form a new league; or football schools would remain in the conference, and possibly expand the league.