Oregon State and Pitt had dreams of winning a conference championship and getting to a BCS bowl; both had their dreams shattered with a late-season loss.

The Beavers (8-4, 7-2 in the Pacific-10 Conference) lost to Oregon, 65-38, Nov. 29 in their season finale. Had they won that game, they would have won the Pac-10 and gone to the Rose Bowl. Pitt (9-3, 5-2 in the Big East) saw its chances of winning the Big East title die a week earlier when the Panthers lost to conference champion Cincinnati, 28-21.

Both teams got a nice consolation prize, because they will meet at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, Dec. 31. The two schools have met only once before -- in the 2002 Insight Bowl -- and that has both coaches excited.

"A great part of bowl games is the opportunity to play against folks you don't normally see," Oregon State coach Mike Riley said in a conference call last night. "I think that part of it adds to the game from a curiosity standpoint. [I wasn't the coach] the last time we played Pitt and of course Dave [Wannstedt] wasn't at Pitt and none of the players played in that game, so this will be exciting and a lot of fun."

Wannstedt added, "the minute our kids found out we were playing a team from the Pac-10 they were excited."

Sun Bowl chairman John Folmer said the bowl organizers were ecstatic because both teams were successful, both are ranked (Pitt is No. 18, Oregon State is No. 24) and both have a national name and should attract a good viewing audience for the CBS national telecast.

This is the first time the Sun Bowl has matched a pair of teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 since 1989, when No. 24 Pitt beat No. 16 Texas A&M, 31-28. That game was the Panthers' second trip to the Sun Bowl. They played in the 1975 game and beat Kansas, 33-19.

Oregon State beat Missouri, 39-38, in the 2006 Sun Bowl, in the Beavers' only appearance in the game.

"We have good traditions with both these teams," Folmer said. "They've done an outstanding job for us. We have two great teams with traditional names. We're excited and CBS is delighted about the matchup."

In the 2002 Insight Bowl in Phoenix, Pitt whipped the Beavers, 38-13, and made a number of big plays in that game, including Larry Fitzgerald's diving touchdown reception of a Rod Rutherford pass for the game's first score.

That team is generally regarded as the best of the Walt Harris era and, after this year's team, is the last group to have won nine games in a season, finishing 9-4. That total included the bowl victory.

This year's nine wins were in the regular season, something a Pitt team had not accomplished since 1982.

Wannstedt and Riley have some familiarity with each other from their days of coaching in the NFL. Wannstedt was the head coach of the Miami Dolphins from 2000 until midway through the 2004 season, and Riley was the coach of the San Diego Chargers from 1999 to 2001. Wannstedt's Dolphins beat Riley's Chargers, 17-7, in 2001, the only meeting between the two as NFL head coaches.

Both said their offenses are inspired by their NFL backgrounds, and both are built around a strong rushing game.

"It will be a pleasure to see Mike again," Wannstedt said. "[We've] always [had] a really good relationship. I haven't seen any film of Mike's offense, but I am sure you'll find we run a very boring offense compared to Mike's. We run a two-back set, pro-style offense."

Riley then weighed in and said: "Actually, it sounds like our offense is a lot like theirs because we run the ball and do play-action as well."