After the Fiesta Bowl, the Orange Bowl has the opportunity to choose its second team. Next, the Fiesta Bowl can pick its second team, and the Sugar Bowl chooses its second team last.

And, yes, if USC or Texas loses this weekend, the Lions will likely hit up the Rose Bowl for the national championship.

BCS computer rankings expert Jerry Palm said he was "98 percent sure" the Lions would leapfrog USC or Texas if either team lost.

"When a team loses, they drop in the polls, and they usually drop to the bottom of the list of teams with the same number of losses," Palm said. "Even if USC were to lose a close game, they would still be behind PSU and LSU."

Officials from the Fiesta Bowl committee met for the first time last night, bowl spokesman Shawn Schoeffler said, to discuss potential teams for its game on Jan. 2, 2006.

"[Yesterday was] the first time to go over some different scenarios," Schoeffler said. "You want to create a matchup that the local community would like to see and a matchup that would have national appeal, too.

"[Penn State is] 6-0 in Fiesta Bowl games. [Lions coach Joe] Paterno's a great friend of many of our volunteers. They won our first national championship game back in '87. Just that the resurgence that they had, and the fact that they're the Big Ten Champion. They're a big story."

If the Fiesta Bowl opts not to select Penn State first, the Orange Bowl would then have an opportunity to match up the Lions with the Hokies or the Seminoles.

Orange Bowl spokesman Joe Hornstein said the Orange Bowl selection committee has stressed it would take the highest-ranked team available.

"If Penn State were the team that's coming to Miami for the FedEx Orange Bowl, the Orange Bowl committee and the local community would be ecstatic," Hornstein said, adding that the selection committee has been communicating weekly via conference calls for the last two months.

Hornstein said Penn State resembles the Iowa team that played in the Orange Bowl in 2003.

"Nearly the entire state of Iowa came to south Florida for New Year's," he said.

ABC, which televises the BCS bowls, does participate in the final conference calls between bowl committees, Schoeffler said, adding that the input of the network is taken into account in the selection process.

Hornstein said that ABC does not function to influence potential committee selections but to provide information.

"At the end of the day, the Orange Bowl committee is 100 percent responsible for its own selection," he said.