Paul Rhoads will need to pack his bowling shoes again.

On Sunday night, the fourth-year coach of ISU football officially lauded the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tenn., as the prime postseason destination for his team after a 6-6 campaign that saw just three wins in nine conference games.

“The reward of college football is the postseason, and when I got a chance to share it with our kids, they were elated beyond words for this opportunity,” Rhoads said at his news conference Sunday night, two hours after the news broke on social media.

Rhoads and ISU Athletic Director Jamie Pollard began Sunday’s news conference by formally accepting the invitation to the Liberty Bowl over the phone from its executive director Steve Ehrhart.

Iowa State’s landing spot for a bowl game greatly depended upon whether Oklahoma received an at-large bid to a BCS bowl.

Even though it was revealed that Northern Illinois’ bid to the Orange Bowl would kick Oklahoma out of the BCS and subsequently move every Big 12 team down the pecking order of conference bowls, Pollard said he and his staff started planning for alternatives earlier that week.

“We knew there was a potential that the Big 12 would end up having one team up, so good business is to make sure you’ve got a contingency plan,” Pollard said. “Coach Rhoads and I looked at the landscape and found out that the Liberty Bowl was going to be available because of the SEC tie-in.

“We jumped all over it and spent the last week working Steve [Ehrhart] very hard on why Iowa State should be in the Liberty Bowl if that comes up.”

Pollard said Iowa State received a ticket allotment of 10,000 for the Liberty Bowl with each ticket priced at $55 apiece. A ticket subsidy is in place for students to attend the game for $25 apiece.

Any unsold tickets will be absorbed with the cost being footed by the school itself, as is the case with any bowl game.

Iowa State (6-6, 3-6 Big 12) will be facing Tulsa for the second time this season. Tulsa (10-3, 7-1 C-USA), won the Conference USA title after beating Central Florida 33-27 in overtime.

In the season opener, Iowa State defeated Tulsa 38-23.

“I think it’s good [to face Tulsa again], but at the same time it’s a bowl game,” said senior linebacker Jake Knott. “I can tell you last year, Rutgers came out with stuff that we had never seen before.”

When Knott received season-ending shoulder surgery, Rhoads said there was a chance that he could return in time for the bowl game. However, Rhoads said Sunday night that Knott will not play Dec. 31.

Iowa State and Tulsa kick off at 2:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 31, at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis, Tenn.