Philadelphia, PA – The five BCS bowl games aren't the only reason to be excited about postseason college football.
Sharing the spotlight with the 10 BCS teams Sunday were dozens of other programs that accepted bids into one of the additional 30 bowl games.
A rundown of those matchups:
New Year's Eve will feature five games: the Meineke Car Care of Texas Bowl features Texas A&M vs. Northwestern; the Sun Bowl pits Georgia Tech opposite Utah; Cincinnati and Vanderbilt will do battle in the Liberty Bowl; Illinois and UCLA square off in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl and Virginia takes on last year's BCS national champion, Auburn, in the Chick-fil-A Bowl.
There are no matchups on New Year's Day as a result of it landing on a Sunday. The games on January 2 include the Joe Paterno-less Penn State Nittany Lions facing one-loss Houston in the TicketCity Bowl and Big Ten runner-up Michigan State against SEC runner-up Georgia in the Outback Bowl.
Also on January 2, Nebraska and South Carolina will meet in the Capital One Bowl and perennial powers Ohio State and Florida tussle in the Gator Bowl.
There are also three non-BCS bowl games after New Year's Day: Kansas State vs. Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl on January 6, Pittsburgh against SMU in the BBVA Compass Bowl on January 7 and Arkansas State vs. Northern Illinois on January 8 in the GoDaddy.com Bowl.
Fans won't have to wait that long for the games to start.
There are three games on December 17: Temple will face Wyoming in the New Mexico Bowl, Ohio will meet Utah State in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl -- formerly the Humanitarian Bowl -- and San Diego State with play Louisiana- Lafayette in the New Orleans Bowl.
FIU will face Marshall in the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl on December 20, while TCU, which won the Rose Bowl last year, will match up with Louisiana Tech in the Poinsettia Bowl on December 21.
Boise State, despite another one-loss regular season, had to settle for the Maaco Bowl Las Vegas opposite Arizona State on December 22. Two days later, Nevada and Southern Miss meet in the Hawaii Bowl.
As usual, things pick up after the holiday.
Missouri and North Carolina on the only game on the docket on December 26 in the Independence Bowl.
December 27 sees two games on the slate: Western Michigan vs. Purdue in the Little Caesars Bowl and Louisville vs. NC State in the Belk Bowl.
Air Force will play in the Military Bowl opposite Toledo on December 28, the same day California and Texas meet in the Holiday Bowl.
Former powerhouses Florida State and Notre Dame are featured in the Champs Sports Bowl on December 29, while Washington and Baylor meet later that night in the Alamo Bowl.
BYU and Tulsa will kick off the December 30 games in the Armed Forces Bowl and that day will also see Rutgers and Iowa State in the Pinstripe Bowl, Mississippi State and Wake Forest in the Music City Bowl, and Iowa and Oklahoma in the Insight Bowl.
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