Bowl) Big Ten Conference (Rose Bowl) Pac-12 Conference (Rose Bowl) Southeastern Conference (Sugar Bowl) Notre Dame is an independent in football, but was a founding member of the BCS. Because of the "Notre Dame rule", it had guaranteed access to the BCS bowls when it met certain defined performance criteria. The other five conferences (listed below) were non-AQ conferences because they did not receive an annual automatic bid to a BCS bowl game. The highest ranked champion of any non-AQ conference received an AQ bid if they ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS poll or ranked in the top 16 and higher than a champion of an AQ conference. The conferences in this group were: Conference USA (C-USA) Mid-American Conference (MAC) Mountain West Conference (MW) Sun Belt Conference Western Athletic Conference (WAC) – dropped football after the 2012 season, following a near-complete membership turnover that saw the league stripped of all but two of its football-sponsoring schools. The conference would reinstate football in 2021, but as part of the second-tier Division I FCS. Ten "non-AQ" teams appeared in the nine following BCS games, with an overall record of 5-3: 2005 Fiesta Bowl: Utah (MW) 35, Pittsburgh 7 2007 Fiesta Bowl: Boise State (WAC) 43, Oklahoma 42 (OT) 2008 Sugar Bowl: Georgia 41, Hawaii (WAC) 10 2009 Sugar Bowl: Utah (MW) 31, Alabama 17 2010 Fiesta Bowl: Boise State (WAC) 17, TCU (MW) 10 2011 Rose Bowl: TCU (MW) 21, Wisconsin 19 2013 Orange Bowl: Florida State 31, Northern Illinois (MAC) 10 Of these appearances, all were via automatic qualifying bids, except Boise State's participation in the highly controversial 2010 Fiesta Bowl in which the Broncos were selected via at-large bid and played fellow BCS Buster TCU. New Year's Six and BCS Bowl Game appearances by conference The following table lists the number of times that a member of each conference appeared in a New Year's Six bowl game or a BCS bowl game. For the 1998 to 2005 seasons there were four such games, from 2006 to 2013 there were five such games. Starting in 2014 there are six CFP associated bowl games (not including the national championship game) known as the New Year's Six. A * indicates a team from that conference won the national championship, while a ^ indicates a team from that conference was the runner-up in the national championship game. Statistics reflect conference