fell out of contention for a BCS bowl; their bowl situation would be decided largely by the play of other Big 12 teams. Number four Missouri beat number two Kansas to win the Big 12 North Division. Missouri rose to the top spot in the BCS rankings prior to facing Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship game. Oklahoma won the game to become the Big 12 Conference champion and secure their berth in the 2008 Fiesta Bowl. Even though Missouri defeated Kansas, won their division, and outranked Kansas in the BCS standings (number 6 compared to number 8 the Orange Bowl selected Kansas instead of Missouri to play in the 2008 Orange Bowl. BCS rules do not provide for all the highest ranked teams to be automatically included in BCS games; considerable discretion is given to the individual bowls in choosing among eligible teams. The Tigers were invited to play in the 2008 Cotton Bowl Classic; the Cotton Bowl Classic having first pick of Big 12 teams after the BCS bowls have made their selections. The Holiday Bowl had the next selection and they chose Texas. Arizona State University was ranked number 11 in the BCS standings and they were eligible for a BCS bowl themselves, but like Missouri, ASU was left out of the BCS selections. They were the two highest ranked teams not selected for BCS bowls. This was primarily because the Rose Bowl selection committee chose to arrange a Pac10/Big10 matchup by pitting the lower ranked Illinois against Pac-10 representative USC. Another factor was BCS Buster Hawaii being ranked 10th; the rules specify that a non-BCS team is automatically selected if they are ranked 10th or higher and if an at-large bid is available. The Holiday Bowl selected the Sun Devils to face the Longhorns to set up the first meeting in the history of the two programs. Texas The bowl was the 10th straight bowl invitation for Texas, setting a new school record by beating the previous streak of nine straight bowl games from 1977–85. The Horns entered the game with a 6–3 bowl record under head coach Mack Brown, including victories in five of their last six bowl games and three consecutive bowl wins for the first time in school history. Texas beat Michigan 38–37 on a last-second field goal in the 2005 Rose Bowl and defeated USC 41–38 in the final minute of the