EAST HARTFORD, Conn. -- Sun Bowl chairman John Folmer walked into the center of a visiting locker room yesterday at Rentschler Field and had a simple question for the 23rd-ranked Pitt Panthers as they celebrated their 34-10 win against Connecticut.

"Are you guys ready to go to El Paso?" Folmer asked, a question which was met with loud cheers from the players, coaches and even university officials who made the trip to East Hartford.

And with that, the Panthers (9-3, 4-2 Big East) accepted a bid to play in the Sun Bowl Dec. 31 at Sun Bowl Stadium in El Paso, Texas.

It is the Panthers' first bowl bid since 2004, and as Folmer said, they earned it the old-fashioned way -- by winning a game to punch their ticket. If the Panthers had lost, they would have been headed to one of the Big East's secondary bowls, either the Meineke Car Care Bowl or the PapaJohns.com Bowl. It is also the first time since 1982 that the Panthers have had nine regular-season wins.

The Sun Bowl had the first pick of Big East teams after the Bowl Championship Series -- whose conference title went to champion Cincinnati -- and Folmer said there was no more attractive option than the Panthers, who will likely be ranked in the Top 20 today when the final polls come out.

"As I said earlier, it is always better to get a team that won their way in instead of a team that's lost their way in," Folmer said. "These guys played really good all year long. We have a very good history with Pitt in El Paso and we can hardly wait to get them down there. I can promise you it will be a lot warmer there than it is here today.

"They are 9-3, they have a name, they have a good TV market. In our part of the country a lot of people still remember [Pitt head coach Dave] Wannstedt from his Cowboys days, and that is important. The people in El Paso like Pittsburgh and like the Cowboys so bringing them in will be great."

Wannstedt said: "You know what is neat about this -- going in with a win. We proved we deserve to be there. Our players deserve to be there. We're not backing into anything."

Folmer had said earlier this week that the bowl would select the Panthers over West Virginia or Rutgers if they won their finale against the Huskies yesterday and got to nine wins.

It seemed like a simple enough scenario, but history wasn't really on the Panthers' side. They had lost to Connecticut in each of the past two seasons and had never won a game at Rentschler Field.

That all changed yesterday as Pitt shook off a slow start then used a 24-point third-quarter outburst to blow open the game.

The Panthers made a number of big plays to change the course of the game, as they blocked a punt, intercepted five Connecticut passes -- including one that linebacker Greg Williams returned 20 yards for a touchdown -- and had two touchdown plays that went for more than 45 yards.

"This was a great team effort," Pitt middle linebacker Scott McKillop said. "The defense made a lot of plays. I thought we played one of our best games all season. We had a lot of different people step up and make plays today.

"We knew it was going to be a defensive game, just based on where both offenses were. We knew we were going to a bowl game no matter what, but it is nice to know we are going there coming off a win."

The first half was ugly, however, as neither team could accomplish much, and it ended with the teams deadlocked at 3-3. At that point, neither had more than 100 yards of total offense -- it was shaping up as the kind of game in which the first team that got to six would win.

Not surprisingly, though, Pitt turned to its big-play guy LeSean McCoy to get things started in the third quarter. He came through with a 47-yard touchdown run that not only gave the Panthers a 10-3 lead, it seemed to settle them down.

Williams intercepted a pass by Tyler Lorenzen on the ensuing drive, which led to a 21-yard field goal by Conor Lee. Given how poorly Connecticut's offense had performed to that point, it seemed as if that lead was insurmountable.

But the Huskies called upon their big-play back, Donald Brown, and he came through in a big way, with a 57-yard touchdown run that pulled the Huskies to within 13-10 with to 4:29 to play in the third quarter.

That play ignited the crowd and the Huskies, but the joy was short-lived. This day belonged to the Panthers, and that was made clear on the first play of Pitt's ensuing possession as Bill Stull hit Derek Kinder with a 61-yard touchdown pass that put Pitt back in control of the game at 20-10.

"It is a very simple story," Connecticut coach Randy Edsall said. "Half the games that we haven't won, it was on us. We came out and had five turnovers, a blocked punt and dropped passes.

"We gave up two plays on defense and other than that I thought defensively we played pretty strong and good. You have to be able to throw and catch the football and we have to work on those things and we will."

NOTE -- Sun Bowl tickets are already on sale online at www.pittsburghpanthers.com and can also be purchased at the ticket office at 1-800-643-PITT (7488). The Pitt ticket office will be open from noon to 5 p.m. today. ... Connecticut (7-5, 3-4) is most likely headed to the PapaJohns.com Bowl in Birmingham, Ala.