Oklahoma, Oklahoma State headed to Texas for bowls

OSU will face Purdue in the Heart of Dallas Bowl at Cotton Bowl Stadium, scheduled for 11 a.m. Jan. 1; the co-Big 12 champion Sooners will meet Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl Classic, played at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, on Jan. 4 at 7 p.m.

The bowl games, announced Sunday night, come two weeks after a Bedlam shootout in Norman, one week after the schools played regular-season finales within two hours of each other, and a year after each won a Phoenix-area bowl game.

Oklahoma (10-2 overall, 8-1 Big 12) claimed a share of the Big 12 championship with its 24-17 win at TCU in Fort Worth on Saturday.

Because the Sooners and Kansas State finished with identical conference records, they'll share the conference title; Kansas State, though, earned the Big 12's automatic Fiesta Bowl berth by way of its head-to-head victory Sept. 22 in Norman.

Still, the No. 11 Sooners were expected to earn an at-large Sugar Bowl berth and face No. 3 Florida.

OU was ultimately bit by rules designed to provide smaller, worthy programs opportunities to compete in the biggest bowl games.

Mid-American Conference champion Northern Illinois finished ranked No. 15 in the final BCS Standings, thereby ensuring its berth in — and Oklahoma's exclusion from — a major bowl game.

Champions of the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC automatically qualify for BCS bowl games. But if another, non-automatic qualifying conference champion is ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS Standings — or the top 16 and above an AQ conference winner — that program is ensured an BCS berth.