Response to "Bowl Question" - non SEC Sugar Bowls

The "Bowl Question" thread got me to thinking about how many non-SEC sugar bowls there have been. There have been 9 in 75 Sugar Bowls. 4 have been in the Bowl Alliance + BCS era. 5 have been in the "modern era" of college football (1958 season and beyond, since the 2 point conversion was the last significant rule change until OT)


(listed by SEASON YEAR, not the year the bowl was actually played)


1999
1998
These two had no SEC team in them because the SEC champion was busy with the BCS NC and there were fewer BCS bids back then.

1997
1995
These two had no SEC teams under the similar rules of the Bowl Alliance - the SEC Champ was in the championship game those years.

1972
This year #4 Alabama, the SEC Champ, accepted a bid to the Cotton Bowl to play #7 Texas. The Sugar Bowl wound up being #5 Penn State v #2 Oklahoma.
Auburn was #6 at the end of the regular season, not sure why the Sugar didn't want them, except that maybe they thought they were overrated as they were #9 the week before and had only jumped to #6 after beating Bama 17-16.


1948
#8 UGA won the SEC but took a bid to the Orange bowl to play unranked Texas. Have no idea why. Maybe the Sugar didn't even offer it to them since the SEC champ was so lowly ranked and they were able to get #3 North Carolina and #5 Oklahoma.

1945
#3 Bama took a bid to play $11 USC in the Rose Bowl. Since the next highest SEC team was #14 Tennessee, I guess the Sugar wanted better teams and took #7 St Mary's and #5 Oklahoma State.

1941
#14 Georgia was the SEC Champ, Sugar took #7 Missouri and #6 Fordham

1938
#2 Tennessee wound up in Orange against unranked St Mary's. #1 TCU played #6 Carnegie Tech in the Sugar. Seems like maybe #1 TCU v #2 Tennessee in the Sugar would have made sense but this is just proof bowl matchups hardly ever make sense.


If anyone can lend anymore insight into why the non-SEC sugar bowls of 1972 and previous wound up that way, your help would be appreciated.