ORLANDO, Fla. -- Joe Paterno got the call around 6:30 Sunday night.
No, Penn State wasn't headed to a BCS bowl after all. But the 82-year-old coach with the most wins in major college football history still got his wish: a trip to Walt Disney World for the grandkids with a matchup against a top-tier team.
Penn State will meet LSU in the Jan. 1 Capital One Bowl that features the top non-BCS team from the Big Ten and Southeastern conferences in a clash of powerhouse programs accustomed to BCS bowls.
"The only thing that was important to me as far as this football team is concerned, is to go some place 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 No. 11 Nittany Lions and 13th-ranked Tigers both began the season with dreams of landing in a BCS bowl. Penn State even took faint hopes of jumping Iowa for an at-large bid to a BCS bowl into this weekend before Iowa was chosen for the Orange Bowl earlier Sunday night.
Consider this a consolation.
Paterno will lead his Nittany Lions (10-2) against an LSU (9-3) team full of speed and quickness, the type of SEC matchup that Big Ten teams have struggled with in recent years. Paterno's 23-11-1 record in bowl games will surely be tested.
Even with the tough matchup, Paterno said he wanted the Tigers all along.
"When everybody was speculating about the bowl game and where we're going to go and the whole bit, I talked it over with the team and I said the best matchup for us is if we could get LSU," he said. "Because LSU is a really good team."
That much is certain.
LSU coach Les Miles is 4-0 in bowl games, including two BCS bowls, and the Tigers have outscored their opponents 157-44 in those games.
Perhaps none was bigger than when the Tigers captured the 2007 national championship with a 38-24 win over top-ranked Ohio State in the BCS title game at the Sugar Bowl.
The young Tigers just weren't enough to compete against the SEC elite this season, losing to Alabama, Florida and Mississippi. Finishing the season at the Citrus Bowl stadium might not be what it had in mind to start the season, but LSU isn't complaining about a warm-weather bowl against Penn State.
"I can tell you that our football team wanted to play the best opponent in the greatest bowl destination," Miles said. "And Orlando certainly was our pick.
"I can tell you that our families and our coaches are certainly excited because it is Orlando and it is a great stop. I know I have a 6-year-old that can't stop."
This will be Penn State's fifth trip for a bowl game in Orlando and its first since 2003. The Nittany Lions lone win in four tries was a 31-13 victory over Tennessee in 1994.
With theme-park attractions in town and the ocean not an even hour away, Paterno considers the trip nothing to scoff about.
"I'm looking at this thing as a reward for our kids," Paterno said. "I think, win or lose, we'll be better having to compete against a team the quality of LSU."
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
