It's Pinstripe for ISU

AMES - Start spreading the news - and pack the parka.

The Cyclones (6-6) will take on Rutgers (8-4) in the Dec. 30 Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx borough of New York City.

Warm weather wishes, out. Possibly frosty hopes, all in.

And ISU's captains are cool with that.

“I think we even play better in the cold,” junior linebacker Jake Knott said. “I think that plays to our strengths. The colder the better for us.”

ISU will play in its second bowl in three seasons under head coach Paul Rhoads.

The Cyclones have never met the Big East's Scarlet Knights (8-4), but shared one common foe this season: Connecticut.

ISU won, 24-20, at East Hartford in September. Rutgers lost to the Huskies 10 days ago, 44-20, on the road.

“I don't know anything about Rutgers, but I know they're 8-4 so they're a good team,” said senior safety Ter'Ran Benton, who will turn 22 the day after the bowl game. “I'm going to have to get in the film room pretty fast.”

Rhoads knows Scarlet Knights Coach Greg Schiano well.

“I have great respect for their football program having gone against them for eight years (as a Pitt assistant), and seven of those years Greg was the head football coach,” Rhoads said. “He does a fantastic job with that program - getting the kids to believe.”

Rhoads is familiar with Yankee Stadium as well. But the old, venerable version, not the newer one that his Cyclones will compete in.

The ISU coach nearly made his first national TV appearances in 1983 when attending a game between the Kansas City Royals and the host Yankees.

“My uncle and George Steinbrenner were in the Air Force together,” Rhoads said. “So I have that side of the family out there and my uncle has since passed. But when I was little, we'd go out there and we'd be able to go, with good seats, to Yankee Stadium. And we were right behind the Royals' dugout the day before the (George Brett) pine tar bat incident. I was right behind the Royals' dugout and every one of those replays I would have been on television, had it been a different day.”

He's enjoyed plenty of nationwide face time in the past three seasons, primarily through fiery, enthusiastic post-upset win speeches.

The biggest upset triumph in Cyclone history - the 37-31 double overtime shocker over then-No. 2 Oklahoma State - ended up dousing the Cowboys' hopes of playing for the BCS national championship.

Oklahoma State is the Big 12 Conference's lone BCS team.

The Big Ten, Pac 12, SEC and the ACC had two teams earn, or get picked for, BCS slots.

Kansas State, which beat ISU 30-23 Saturday and stood eighth in the final BCS standings, was leapfrogged by lower ranked Virginia Tech (11th) and Michigan (13th). The Wildcats (10-2) will play in the Cotton Bowl.

“We deserve to have two teams in the BCS,” Rhoads said. “Kansas State deserves to be there - I don't care what brand of football they play.”

Other than concern about a lack of conference respect, nothing but positive vibes flowed from Ames.

Few Cyclone players have ever visited the Big Apple, let alone the updated version of the “House that Ruth Built.”

“It's a bowl game and it's New York,” said offensive lineman Kelechi Osemele. “There's really not much more you could ask for.”

ANOTHER COMMIT: Linebacker Eddie Porter, a junior college transfer, committed to the Cyclones over the weekend. He had committed to Texas A&M, which fired coach Mike Sherman Friday.