ORANGE BOWL Setting is different for Iowa, USC

The Big Ten and Pac-10 co-champions are meeting in Florida instead of California.
MIAMI (AP) -- At first glance, the setting is typical for a bowl game between Pac-10 and Big Ten co-champions, with palm trees swaying in the balmy breeze at the beachfront hotels where the teams stay.
But this isn't the Rose Bowl. Missing are the smoggy skies and San Gabriel Mountains, and the only parade is the line of cars carrying Iowa Hawkeye fans down the Florida Turnpike to Miami.
The vagaries of the Bowl Championship Series brought Iowa and Southern California together 3,000 miles from Pasadena, and they'll play in the Orange Bowl for the first time Thursday night.
"People call it the Rose Bowl of the East," Trojans quarterback Carson Palmer says. "A lot of guys on our team have never been to Florida, so it's a great opportunity for us to enjoy the weather and being out here. To play Iowa in a setting other than Los Angeles is awesome for all of us."
Top Heisman candidates
The game is touted as perhaps the best of the bowl season, featuring Heisman Trophy winner Palmer, runner-up Brad Banks of Iowa and two teams with a chance to finish No. 2. The Hawkeyes (11-1) are ranked third, and the Trojans (10-2) are fifth.
Iowa players professed delight over the invitation to Miami, in part because their roster includes 14 Florida natives.
But Hawkeye fans are accustomed to the Rose Bowl as the reward for a Big Ten title, and many have bad memories of their team's only other bowl game in Florida -- a loss to the Florida Gators in the 1983 Gator Bowl at Jacksonville, where the wind chill dipped to 13 degrees below zero.
While it never gets that cold in Miami, Iowans nonetheless reacted frostily at first to the Orange Bowl berth.
"Stunned is the best description I can give you," Hawkeyes coach Kirk Ferentz says. "Probably the most disappointed people were the ones who had non-refundable tickets to California, and rightfully so, because it sure looked like that was direction we were headed."
Iowa has huge following
With the Hawkeyes bound for their first January bowl in 12 years, enthusiasm flagged only briefly, and their fans bought 27,000 Orange Bowl tickets in two days. At least 40,000 Iowa rooters are expected for the game, probably about the same number that would have made the trip to Pasadena.
"Once the initial couple of minutes went by, I think everybody was ecstatic," Ferentz says. "Everybody I talk to now is excited about coming to Florida."
Never mind that the Hawkeyes are 0-4 in the state. So are the Trojans, and Miami is an unfamiliar holiday setting for them, too.
The only other Pac-10 team to play in the Orange Bowl was Washington, which beat Oklahoma in 1985.