Iowa-ISU in Insight Bowl? Not too likely

Rules of thumb:

1. A bowl game official will always talk up the team that a reporter is inquiring about.

2. A bowl game official will never singe a bridge, let alone burn one.

3, You can't take to heart anything a bowl official says in the week leading up to the selections of bowl teams, unless it involves someone else's bowl and that bowl has zero impact on the bowl official's bowl.

The Insight Bowl tells people it hasn't ruled out an Iowa-Iowa State matchup. Technically, that is probably true. If that were the best-possible scenario for the Tempe, Ariz., game, that's what it would go with. I put the chances of it happening at around 1 percent, however.

First, the Insight seems like it has a decent shot at Texas. The Insight Bowl isn't going to pass on Texas.

Second, bowls (other than the BCS title game this season) hate rematches from the regular season. Ask the Holiday Bowl how much it enjoyed getting stuck with a Nebraska-Washington rematch last year. The answer: Not much.

Third, second-tier and third-tier bowls hate it when the two teams are fairly near each other geographically, especially if they come from a small state. That tends to alienate the television audience of most of the rest of the country, especially for a game that starts at 10 p.m. on the Eastern time zone.

The Insight Bowl liked the size of the crowd it got from Iowa-Missouri last year, but would have gotten a better television rating had one of the teams been from the eastern part of the Big Ten or the Texas part of the Big 12.

TV ratings aren't everything, but they do matter. The bowl is trying to not only make money from tourists, but is trying to attract more via its telecast. The more eyeballs watching the 3-hour advertisement for Greater Phoenix, the happier the bowl.

Fourth, Iowa and Iowa State's football staffs do not want a rematch. Iowa doesn't want to risk losing twice in the same season to the Cyclones. The embarrassment of that would take a long time to live down in the old home state. And ISU doesn't want to risk losing a year's worth of bragging rights over Iowa, especially when the game that would be freshest in minds all through the offseason would be the bowl and not ISU's 44-41 triple-overtime win in September.

There's speculation the Insight won't take Penn State if the 9-3 Nittany Lions are still available, and they will be. The Insight Bowl won't want the scandal-associated Penn State squad, it's been said by some people in very serious tones. Baloney.

It wouldn't surprise me to see the Insight choose Iowa ahead of Penn State even though the Hawkeyes are 7-5 and Penn State is 9-3. But I wouldn't be surprised if the bowl takes Penn State, either. Does Iowa bring all that many fans back to Tempe a second-straight year after a blah season? I'm not sure. Penn State would surely attract a larger television audience than Iowa.

If the Insight Bowl thinks Penn State will buy a lot of tickets and have a lot of fans in Tempe spending money on hotel beds and local cuisine, it will invite Penn State. If it thinks it's better off financially with Iowa, or with Ohio State, that's the way it will go. This is about commerce, not image.