There's no Utah this year. No one from the five non-power conferences to crash the New Year's Day party. But Conference USA certainly showed its overall strength as a conference, and set a conference record, after bowl bids were announced on Sunday.

C-USA earned a record six bowl bids, the most among the five non-power conferences - C-USA, Mountain West, Western Athletic, Sun Belt and Mid-American conferences. C-USA has five bowl ties, and even earned an at-large bid.

C-USA champ Tulsa (8-4) will play in the Liberty Bowl Dec. 31 against Fresno State (8-4), out of the WAC, which earned three bowl bids. The Bulldogs have stumbled since their near-victory over No. 1 Southern Cal, losing two straight. The Golden Hurricane is coming off a C-USA title game win over Central Florida.

UCF (8-4), making its first trip to a bowl in school history, heads for Honolulu for the Hawaii Bowl on Dec. 24 against another WAC foe, Nevada (8-3), which beat Fresno State last week and won a share of the WAC title. A UCF win would give the Golden Knights nine wins after a winless season in 2004.

UT-El Paso (8-3), which was in line for the C-USA West title until losing its final two conference games, will be in Mobile, Ala., on Dec. 21 for the GMAC Bowl. The Miners will get Toledo (8-3), one of two bowl teams from the MAC. The Zips go to a bowl game, even though it didn't win one of the MAC's two divisions, leapfrogging Northern Illinois (7-5), which narrowly lost to Akron in the MAC Championship game last week.

After that, three 6-5 teams got the call out of C-USA. Houston will make its second bowl appearance in three seasons under head coach Art Briles at the Fort Worth Bowl on Dec. 23, as it faces Kansas out of the Big 12. Southern Mississippi earned the final bowl bid tied to C-USA, as it heads for Lafayette, La., to face Sun Belt champion Arkansas State (6-5) in the New Orleans Bowl on Dec. 20. The game is in Lafayette this year, due to Hurricane Katrina. Memphis got the at-large bid out of C-USA, going to the Motor City Bowl on Dec. 26 to play Akron (7-5), which got the automatic bowl bid out of the MAC after beating NIU in that conference's title game.

The Mountain West was next with four bowl bids, followed by the WAC with three, the MAC with two and the Sun Belt with one.

No. 15 Texas Christian (10-1) came the closest to playing in a New Year's Day bowl, as it faces Iowa State from the Big 12 on Dec. 31 in the Houston Bowl. The Horned Frogs haven't played a game since mid-November. They are now the only nationally-ranked team from these five conferences.

Utah (6-5) will play Georgia Tech from the ACC in the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco on Dec. 29. Colorado State (6-5) faces Navy in the inaugural Poinsettia Bowl on Dec. 22 in San Diego. And, Brigham Young (6-5) faces California on Dec. 22 at the Las Vegas Bowl.

The remaining bid went to WAC member Boise State (9-3), which will host its own bowl game, the MPC Computers Bowl in Boise, Idaho, Dec. 28 against ACC foe Boston College.

Seven bowl-eligible schools from these five conferences were left out of the mix: (MAC) Northern Illinois (7-5), Western Michigan (7-4), Central Michigan (6-5), Miami (Ohio) (7-4), Bowling Green (6-5); (MWC) New Mexico (6-5); (WAC) Louisiana Tech (7-4).