Had Washington lost their last game I believe a WAC or Mountain West team would have filled in. Boise, Nevada or Utah...it would have been an upgrade for all those teams from what they are playing in now. Funny how much some of us rag on the non-AQ's and then suddenly the opportunity to play one in a bowl would have been so much better than the current situation.
On the whole this is a bad bowl year for the Big 12. Fiesta Bowl will probably be a joke, A&M is going to be embarrassed by LSU and I don't think Arizona has a chance against OSU. Top three bowls are pretty much throwaways. Insight looks like a decent matchup (ofc I wish it was us), Holiday no comment, then we have finally have some interesting matchups in the bottom 3 with Baylor vs. Illinois, KSU vs. Syracuse and Northwestern vs. Texas Tech (all those could go either way).
This won't happen in the Big 10 because the Rose Bowl is only required to take an at large every 4 years and their top 3 non-BCS bowls are all tied to the SEC.