SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said he's dropping his plans to sue the Bowl Championship Series because of the organization's recent decision to move to a playoff system.

Shurtleff announced last year that he was seeking antitrust law firms to join a potential federal lawsuit aimed at disbanding the BCS.

But Shurtleff told KTVX-TV on Friday that he believes the lawsuit threat helped prompt the decision to go to a four-team playoff format in 2014.

``We do think what we were doing led to their changes, and at the end of the day that's what we wanted them to do,'' he said. ``We wanted them to make the changes.''

A committee of university presidents approved the four-team playoff in June.

The BCS was established in 1998 to run the top tier of college football's postseason and to set up a No. 1 vs. No. 2 national title game.

Critics contend it has unfairly given some schools preferential access to the title game and other premier bowls - along with the money that comes with it. Under the BCS, the champions of six conferences have automatic bids to play in top-tier bowl games; the other five conferences don't.

When Shurtleff took up the cause several years ago, Utah was a member of a conference without an automatic bid to a BCS bowl. The school has since joined the Pac-12, a BCS member.

Schools such as Utah and Boise State have lost out on millions of dollars over the years because the system has kept smaller conferences at a competitive and financial disadvantage, Shurtleff has said.

Shurtleff, a Republican who leaves office at the end of the year, said attorneys in his office plan to monitor the new playoff system.

``We're very suspicious that a selection committee picking four teams is still going to be an antitrust problem, but we don't know for sure,'' he told the Deseret News.