After two weeks of uncertainty, the Cyclones finally know where they’ll be spending their holidays.

Iowa State accepted a bid to play in the Insight Bowl on Dec. 31, the team announced Sunday. Insight Bowl officials also announced later in the day that the Cyclones will be matched up against Minnesota.

“We are thrilled and elated to be headed to Tempe, Ariz., to represent Iowa State University in the 2009 Insight Bowl,” ISU coach Paul Rhoads said at his press conference Sunday afternoon.

The trip to Tempe will be the second for the Cyclones to compete in the Insight Bowl — the first was in 2000 against Pittsburgh.

This will also be the second time Rhoads has coached in the Insight Bowl, as he was the defensive coordinator for Pittsburgh in the Cyclones’ 37–29 win.

That game is believed to be the biggest reason that Iowa State was picked over Missouri, which has two more wins than the Cyclones, including a head-to-head victory. The Insight Bowl is higher in the bowl pecking order than the Independence or Texas Bowls — the last time Iowa State played in Tempe, more than 20,000 Cyclone faithful made the trip, leading Insight Bowl officials to believe the Cyclones were a better draw than the 8–4 Tigers.

“It speaks volumes to what our fans mean to our athletic programs, to what they mean to interested bowl partners and to the recognition of what Iowa State University and its backing are all about,” Rhoads said. “You can’t talk to anybody wearing Cardinal and Gold that’s not excited about going to a bowl game this holiday season.”

That excitement could stem from the fact that Iowa State combined for just nine wins the previous three seasons and hadn’t seen bowl competition since a 2005 loss to TCU.

Being selected for a bowl perceived to be more prestigious than the Texas Bowl — the bowl many experts expected the Cyclones to be in — also comes as a pleasant surprise to Rhoads, who wasn’t too picky about where his team played their postseason football.

“Any bowl would have sufficed this year. We are just thrilled to death to be playing in a bowl game, to be practicing in December and have the opportunity to play,” Rhoads said. “Right now, to be the head football coach and lead this team into Tempe, Ariz., is just a tremendous feeling.”

Rhoads made a bowl berth a goal for his team, and, near the end of the press conference, he was asked if he envisioned sitting in that very position at the time of his hiring nearly one full year ago.

“I absolutely did,” the coach said simply. “To be sitting here right now is not a surprise because of the young men I’m surrounded by and the work I see them accomplishing every day.”

The players’ reactions shared the sentiment that the work Rhoads was talking about was rewarded in the bowl invitation.

“It feels really good to put all that work and effort into something and to be able to accomplish that after setting that goal is a testament to our work,” senior center Reggie Stephens said.

For Rhoads, though, the moment when he found out the team’s bowl destination could have been much sweeter than it was.

The timing of the announcement was such that the team was unable to set up a face-to-face meeting to inform the players and coaching staff.

Senior safety James Smith said Rhoads sent out a mass text message to the players to tell them about the bowl bid, but Smith hadn’t had a chance to talk to his coach until shortly before the press conference began.

“I just saw him in the locker room and told him, ‘Coach, congratulations,’” Smith said with a smile stretched across his face. “We finally know where we’re going… it’s a really exciting feeling.”

Rhoads said he’d had a couple of opportunities to talk to his players face to face, but the reaction and emotion was the same each time.

“They’re all smiles. They’re excited,” Rhoads said. “We’ve got a football team that’s extremely excited and anxious to experience everything that goes on along with it. A bowl is a reward and will be an experience they will remember for a long time to come. It will be an unbelievably enjoyable experience, but the best part of a bowl game is winning it, I can assure you of that, too.”

Although it was announced later Sunday evening, at the time of the press conference the Cyclones’ opponent — a choice that came down to Michigan State and Minnesota of the Big 10 — was still up in the air.

“Certainly no speculation has been done on our part, and it is too soon to even begin preparation,” Rhoads said. “As soon as we find out who the opponent is, we’ll acquire film and begin to study in earnest.”

The players and coaches didn’t see not knowing who the opponent would be as a problem, as they knew the announcement would come Sunday and leave them with ample time to prepare.

“We’re just excited to be in the game,” Stephens said. “We’ll worry about all the preparation as it comes. Right now, we’re just enjoying hearing the location and things like that.”

A challenge facing Rhoads and his staff, now, is balancing the workload between off-season recruiting and that of practice and preparation for the game.

Rhoads said work will begin for the players in practices on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of this week, before taking time off for finals week.

The team will get back to work after finals are over for a few days before the players have more time off for Christmas break.

The extra practice time will be used to develop the freshmen and other young players who will be returning to the team next season, a major benefit of playing in a bowl game so late in the postseason slate.

One problem facing the team is the fact that, on a team so young, only the fifth-year seniors have any experience in a bowl atmosphere. Even then, those players were only spectators for the Houston Bowl in 2005, a year in which they were redshirting.

How the players of the young team handle their first such experience in a game of this magnitude will go a long way to determining how that experience ends up for the Cyclones.

“The excitement will be there, but, at the same time with Coach Rhoads being the great leader that he is, he’ll have everything under control, so we won’t get distracted by those things,” Smith said.