Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said Monday that highly ranked Boise State University's exclusion from a lucrative Bowl Championship Series game bolsters his pending lawsuit against college football's postseason system, which determines a national champion.

"There was some kind of mischief going on," Shurtleff said in a phone interview with The Arizona Republic. "There is so much money and power and control with these old traditional bowls, and they want to keep that power and control and decide who gets the money, and it's evident in this case."

Shurtleff has been an outspoken opponent of the BCS, and he has promised to file a lawsuit against the organization, alleging the BCS is an illegal monopoly that restrains free trade. He had planned to file suit by year's end but said the process of hiring outside antitrust legal counsel to assist has taken longer than expected. He now plans to sue in February.

The core of Shurtleff's argument is that the BCS, which includes the Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar bowls, rewards six major conferences at the expense of five others.

All 10 spots in this season's BCS games are filled by teams from the major or automatic qualifying conferences.

Boise State is part of the Mountain West Conference, one of the five other conferences that don't automatically receive bids to play in BCS games.

Shurtleff said the Sugar Bowl's decision Sunday to pass Boise State, the seventh-highest-ranked team in the BCS standings, in favor of a match between No. 11 Virginia Tech and No. 13 Michigan adds evidence for his suit because of the lost revenue for Boise State and its conference.

Bill Hancock, executive director of the BCS, strongly disagreed with Shurtleff.

"The history and tradition of college football is for the bowls to choose the participants," he said, adding that was the opposite of a monopoly trampling the rights of others.

This season, the six major conferences will share at least $158.2 million in BCS revenue, with four of those conferences receiving at least $28.4 million each because they have two universities playing in BCS games. The other two conferences will each receive at least $22.3 million.

The five non-qualifying conferences, meanwhile, will share at least $13.2 million.

Had Boise State, which played in the 2007 and 2010 Fiesta Bowls, or another school from those five conferences been invited to a BCS game, the shared payout for those conferences would have increased to $26.4 million.

Boise State football coach Chris Petersen on Monday called for an end to the current BCS system, saying people are frustrated and tired of it. His school is ranked higher than half of the teams playing in BCS games.

The Broncos (11-1) accepted an invitation to the MAACO Bowl in Las Vegas, where they will play Arizona State.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.