at the time they went to the games...

And technically I believe there has only been 1 time that a non-BCS team was selected as an At-Large...technically all other selections were auto qualifiers that had to be taken...

In 2009 TCU was ranked #4 which was the auto-qualifier from outside the BCS. #6 BSU was eligible for an at-large selection and was chosen.

http://www.bcsfootball.org/news/story?id=5528971

That said I do not believe the original post was caring about auto-qualifiers or at-large from the non-BCS teams in question but rather them participating at all so both TCU & BSU did it in 2009 from non-BCS conferences...