Missouri football team accepts bid to Insight Bowl

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- For much of recent history, the Missouri Tigers have ended bowl selection Sunday feeling slighted.

Not anymore.

Many early bowl projections put the Tigers in the Holiday Bowl, but the school announced Sunday that it had accepted an invitation to play Iowa in the Insight Bowl on Dec. 28 in Tempe, Ariz.

"This is going to be a great reward for our team and for our fans," Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said. "Iowa is a very talented team and they'll present a lot of challenges, but it should be a great trip for our program."

The Tigers (10-2) will face an Iowa team that lost its last three games to finish 7-5 and fourth in the Big Ten. The Hawkeyes are 5-3 in bowl games under coach Kirk Ferentz and have won their last two.

Iowa and Missouri are 250 miles apart, yet the teams have not played since 1910 (a 5-0 win by the Tigers in Columbia). Iowa's last win against Missouri was 21-6 in 1907 in Iowa City. Missouri leads the all-time series 7-5.

The two teams were scheduled to play a four-game series from 2005 to 2008 that never was finalized.

"We had them on the schedule because they were so good," Pinkel said. "We were building our program and it didn't make a lot of sense to me to play such a great football program. I'd say it was an intelligent decision."

After Oklahoma earned the automatic bid to the Fiesta Bowl and Texas A&M accepted a bid to the Cotton Bowl, that left Oklahoma State, Missouri and Nebraska as the next three teams in the selection order.

Nebraska was expected to earn the Insight bid. Instead, the Huskers (10-3), who will begin play in the Big Ten next year, were passed over in favor of the Tigers -- a team they beat during the season.

"I know right now that Nebraska has one more loss than Missouri on their record," wide receiver T.J. Moe said. "I know we've been snubbed in the past but when you get 10 wins and don't get to play in the conference championship it's not up to us anymore."

The Tigers are heading to a bowl for a school record sixth-straight year, including seven of the last eight seasons Pinkel. The appearance moves Pinkel ahead of coach Dan Devine for most all-time at Missouri.

The Hawkeyes ended the season on a skid, but won't be overlooked by the Tigers.

"Their lineman, both offensively and defensively, are well known for being strong and tough," center Tim Barnes said. "It'll be a tough test for us mentally but as a team we have great respect for what they do."

In 2007, the Tigers went into the Big 12 Championship ranked No. 1 in the country only to lose the game and a shot at a BCS birth. They finished the year 12-2 and lost out on an Orange Bowl bid to archrival Kansas.

The Tigers still remember the time when getting to a bowl was labeled as a success. From 1984-2002, Missouri appeared in a bowl game just twice.

Now it has become the norm.

"A bowl is just kind of a privilege," Moe said. "You can say you're being snubbed one way or another but it'll sure be fun to get out there and play one last game."