BCS replacement teams & conference loyalty

As part of a series of reference posts, I want to look at the history of the BCS and replacement teams when a team is selected for the national championship, specifically looking to see if there is conference loyalty.

Obviously, this was only relevant for the 2006-2013 seasons, during which there was a fifth BCS bowl.  Prior to that, the national championship actually displaced teams into other BCS bowls.

Any years mentioned in this post are referring to the season, not the calendar year in which the bowls took place.

The 2006 season started the SEC dominance, so let's look at the Sugar Bowl for their replacement.

The only year that the Sugar Bowl did not feature an SEC team was in 2011.  Because Alabama and LSU played for the national title (ironically, in a game hosted by the Sugar Bowl), and only 2 teams per conference are allowed into BCS bowls, the Sugar Bowl was required to pick two at-large teams.  They selected Michigan and Virginia Tech, from the Big Ten and ACC, respectively.

As a side note, not every SEC team chosen was the Championship loser.  In fact, that only happened twice, in 2008 and 2009.

In 2006 and 2007, Ohio State was the losing team in the national championship.  Of course, the Rose Bowl does everything it can to preserve the Big Ten/Pac-12 matchup, so a replacement Big Ten team was chosen in both cases.

In 2008 and 2009, the Big 12 champion played in the national title game.  While the Fiesta Bowl chose a replacement from the Big 12 in 2008, they did not in 2009.  This was mostly due to the next highest ranked Big 12 team being Oklahoma State at #19.  TCU was not only the qualified non-AQ, but they were required to be in a BCS bowl due to the 3/4 rule.

The Rose Bowl again had to chose a replacement in 2010, this time due to Pac-12 champion Oregon playing in the title game.  However, the BCS had implemented a rule that the first year that a Pac-12 or Big Ten team was selected for the national championship and there was a qualified non-AQ team, the Rose Bowl had to select the non-AQ team as the replacement, so once more TCU busted into a BCS bowl.

We've already gone over 2011 above, and independent Notre Dame was the national title participant, so there was no need for another bowl to not have their champion.

In summary...

2006-2007:  Sugar and Rose Bowls took teams from the same conference.
2008:  Sugar and Fiesta Bowls took teams from the same conference.
2009:  Sugar took an SEC team; Fiesta did not choose a Big 12 team, due to low rankings.
2010:  Sugar took an SEC team; Rose did not choose a Pac-12 team, due to contractual obligations to the non-AQ.
2011:  Sugar could not choose an SEC team since both were in the national title.
2012:  Sugar took an SEC team; no other BCS bowl was affected by Notre Dame.