8 (#7 BCS) Oklahoma, who won the Big 12 Championship Game, to play Pac-10 winner Washington State in the Rose Bowl.
[5] Rose Bowl committee executive director Mitch Dorger was not pleased with the results.
[5] This left the Sugar Bowl with #14 BCS Florida State, the winner of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Hawkeyes tied for the Big Ten conference championship with Ohio State, and they did not meet this season.
On October 5, in the 300th game for USC on live television, the Trojans lost 30–27 in overtime at Washington State.
This was only the second time a Pac-10 team appeared in the Orange Bowl; eighteen years earlier, Washington won in January 1985.