Iowa, Tennessee coming for Citrus Bowl; Kansas State to face NC State in Pop-Tarts Bowl; App State and Miami (Ohio) in Cure Bowl

The announcement that Tennessee would face Iowa in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl did not come as much of a surprise Sunday afternoon, but the Orlando Pop-Tarts Bowl was not so easy. Officials for the game, which announced Kansas State as one team early Sunday afternoon, were still negotiating with teams more than an hour after the predetermined announcement time.

Finally, NC State was the team selected, so the Wildcats (8-4) will face the Wolfpack (9-3) in the Pop-Tarts Bowl on Dec. 28 (5:45 p.m., ESPN), at Camping World Stadium. The Tennessee-Iowa matchup in the Citrus Bowl is New Year’s Day at Camping World (1 p.m., ABC) as well.

UCF headed back to Gasparilla Bowl to face Georgia Tech

In the other Orlando bowl game this year, Appalachian State will face Miami of Ohio in the Avocados from Mexico Cure Bowl. The Cure Bowl is being played at UCF’s FBC Mortgage Stadium “Bounce House” on Dec. 16 (3:30 p.m., ABC).

The hold-up for the Pop-Tarts Bowl was due to negotiations among the bowl committee, several schools and other bowl games. Brett McMurphy of Action Network reported that the teams in the mix were Notre Dame, NC State, Louisville, Clemson, North Carolina, Miami and Virginia Tech.

The commotion was caused when the College Football Committee decided to leave Florida State out of the final four.

“It takes a while to figure out, and this year in particular, the CFP process. There were so many changes that could occur,” said Steve Hogan, CEO of Florida Citrus Sports. “You are kind of in a certain place before the weekend and when that gets sorta shifted through championship-game night, you’ve got a lot of work to do on Sunday.

“By the time we saw the final selections at 2:30, to get it all done quickly just wasn’t in the cards.”

With Notre Dame being a team in the mix, it was certainly a big opportunity for the Orlando committee to make its pitch for Notre Dame and its huge fan base, but with the Irish ending up in the Sun Bowl and Louisville in the Holiday Bowl, NC State became the selection from among all the other available ACC teams.

“The ACC had teams that were ranked and deserved to be considered to be selected. Louisville was highly ranked and of course you have 9-win teams with Notre Dame and NC State and an 8-win team with Clemson,” Hogan said. “There were some tie-breakers there and head-to-head and different things, and you had three bowls that were [also] selecting. So you just have to kinda work through that process.”

Iowa (10-3) was a simple selection for the Citrus Bowl based on finishing runner-up in the Big Ten, and Tennessee (8-4) became the SEC selection due to runner-up Georgia being selected for the Orange Bowl, Missouri going to the Cotton Bowl and Ole Miss headed to the Peach Bowl.

“It’s going to be interesting to see what football folks talk about. Is it the tortoise and the hare? It’s it the huge defense [against] the huge offensive power? I’m excited to see that,” Hogan said of the Tennessee-Iowa matchup. “I started here in 1995 with the 1996 bowl game and that was with Tennessee and Payton Manning against Eddie George and Ohio State.

“We had [Tennessee] here two other times after that and Tennessee has always descended on Orlando in big, big numbers. … We got [Tennessee AD] Danny White coming back to town and coach [Josh] Heupel and all those UCF ties. … Iowa has a huge history here and some great games. … We’re pretty excited.”

It will also be a homecoming for former Orlando Olympia High quarterback Joe Milton, now the starting QB at Tennessee. Also returning to Orlando will be Tennessee coaching staff analyst McKenzie Milton, who starred as a quarterback at UCF.

Hogan also gave his opinion of the College Football Playoff selection committee’s decision to leave unbeaten Florida State (13-0) out of the four-team CFP.

“My heart breaks for Florida State,” Hogan said. “If you talk about the best teams available, the committee was in a tough spot. … Florida State, they’re all class and I would have liked to have seen them get that opportunity.”

Alan Gooch, the Cure Bowl executive director, said he’s very pleased with the teams selected. Appalachian State (8-5) is the Sun Belt Conference runner-up and Miami (11-2) won the Mid-Atlantic (MAC) championship. Miami has won 11 straight games.

“We’re very happy about the matchup. We know Miami of Ohio has a very strong run game. We watched the championship game yesterday and they beat Toledo,” Gooch said. “We’ve been flirting around with getting App State in our game for, it seems like, nine years that we’ve had the Cure Bowl. They are very excited to be here and we are very excited to host them.

“We’ll have two really good football teams here … and all for a good cause. We’re bringing teams together to find a cure for cancer.”

Chris Hays covers high school and college football and college football recruiting. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) @OS_ChrisHays or on Instagram @OS_ChrisHays. Email him at chays@orlandosentinel.com.