No. 11 Penn State out of BCS, tabbed for Capital One Bowl

Associated Press

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Bypassed for the BCS, No. 11 Penn State settled for a marquee matchup against another of college football’s better-known programs.

Coach Joe Paterno sounded upbeat Sunday night after learning the team is headed to the Capital One Bowl to play No. 13 LSU on New Year’s Day, even though Iowa took the Big Ten’s second BCS berth after getting tabbed for the Orange Bowl.

Ohio State is already headed to the Rose Bowl as the conference champion. No more than two teams from the same conference can make the BCS, so Penn State (10-2) got shut out.

“I don’t know who was lobbying,” Paterno said during a teleconference when asked if there was disappointment on getting left out. “We were trying to find out what was going on. You’d like to be able to say, ‘Hey, you’re going to go here, you’re going to go there, what day of the week.”’

Penn State did have designs on a BCS bowl in the days since the regular season ended Nov. 21 with a 42-14 rout at Michigan State.

Paterno and other athletic officials worked the phones, and the school launched a video and e-mail campaign touting the team as a TV ratings draw and revenue-generator with its large, traveling fan base.

Iowa apparently had an even BCS bigger trump card, though — a 21-10 win in September over Penn State at Beaver Stadium.

“The only thing that was important to me as far as this football team is concerned, is to go someplace nice and to have a really good opponent,” Paterno said. “Whether you put a BCS in front of it, a BCS behind it, I really didn’t think about it.”

The Nittany Lions were then a virtual lock for the Capital One Bowl, which gets the first pick of non-BCS Big Ten teams. Penn State and LSU have met just one other time — a 16-9 win for the Nittany Lions at the 1974 Orange Bowl to finish the program’s first 12-0 season.

Holiday Bowl

TUCSON, Ariz. — No. 22 Arizona will face 20th-rated Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl on Dec. 30 in San Diego in a matchup of two Mooney High graduates.

Arizona is coached by former Mike Stoops, whose brother Bob coaches at Oklahoma, while Nebraska is led by Bo Pelini.

The game is a rematch of the 1998 Holiday Bowl, in which the Wildcats rallied to defeat the Cornhuskers 23-20.

The Wildcats drew the bid one day after they wrapped up an 8-4 season with a 21-17 victory at No. 20 USC — a triumph that gave Arizona a share of second place in the Pac-10 with a 6-3 record.

Nebraska (9-4) lost a 13-12 heartbreaker to Texas in the Big 12 championship game on Saturday night. The Cornhuskers won the conference’s North Division with a 6-2 mark.

Arizona coach Mike Stoops said his team is thrilled to receive the bid. The Wildcats, who lost in overtime to eventual Pac-10 champion Oregon at home on Nov. 21, came back to defeat Arizona State and USC on the road.

Sun Bowl

STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford will be making its first bowl appearance in eight years at the Sun Bowl against Oklahoma.

The 19th-ranked Cardinal (8-4) accepted the bid Sunday to the bowl game in El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 31. It will be Stanford’s third trip to the Sun Bowl. It defeated LSU in 1977 and Michigan State in 1996.

The 38-0 win over the Spartans marks the last time the Cardinal won a bowl game.