Just before the BCS bowl selections were announced to the country Sunday, Kansas University athletic director Lew Perkins slipped into a room where the Jayhawks’ football team was waiting for big news.

Perkins immediately pulled out a bag and started throwing oranges out to all the seniors.

He didn’t have to say a word.

“It was like when my kids were knee-high on Christmas morning,” KU coach Mark Mangino said. “They were just grinning from ear to ear.”

With good reason. The Jayhawks’ 11-1 regular season was rewarded in a big way Sunday, when the Orange Bowl invited them to play in its prestigious Jan. 3 game in Miami.

The Jayhawks will play Virginia Tech, which boasts an 11-2 record and ACC championship.

“We worked hard to be one of the best teams in America,” KU linebacker Joe Mortensen said. “We’re just glad to be in the BCS, to be in the Orange Bowl. It’s one of the best bowls you can go to.”

The Orange Bowl obviously thought highly of the Jayhawks, too. Kansas was picked as an at-large over Missouri, West Virginia, Hawaii and Arizona State.

After KU was taken, West Virginia was scooped up by the Fiesta Bowl, and Hawaii went to the Sugar Bowl. Missouri and Arizona State were left out of the BCS picture.

It was believed, if Kansas had been passed over by the Orange, that the Jayhawks would have been matched up against Big 12 colleague Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

“When you go to play a bowl game, you like to play against another conference,” Mangino said. “It’s conference pride : that’s what makes the bowls a lot of fun. If it’s the only way we’d play in a BCS bowl, then fine, we’ll play Oklahoma.”

It never came to that, though. Kansas instead will play a Virginia Tech team which beat Boston College, 30-16, in the ACC championship Saturday. The Hokies, led by a smothering defense, are No. 3 in the latest BCS standings. KU is No. 8.

Matchups, film breakdown and game preparation will come soon. But Sunday, KU’s athletic department obviously was in a celebratory mood.

“I mean this very sincerely: We couldn’t be any happier,” Perkins said. “It’s a great opportunity for the kids in our program.”

Perkins was in constant contact with all of KU’s bowl possibilities well into the night Saturday and all day Sunday. He figured mid-day Sunday that KU definitely was going to a BCS bowl and learned shortly before the 7 p.m. selection show that it was going to be in South Florida.

Orange Bowl CEO Eric Poms said the teams were picked with current matchups – and a tribute to the past – in mind.

“We’re about to celebrate our 75th anniversary next year,” Poms said. “A big part of our history is the old Big Eight Conference. : . Having an opportunity to pair (the ACC and Big 12) together was very appealing, and that was really the rationale in going in that direction. A national matchup with a Big 12 program going against a really strong ACC program.”

Kansas will travel to Miami on Dec. 28 and spend a week in Florida preparing for its first Orange Bowl appearance since 1969. The game will kick off at 7 p.m. on Jan. 3 from Dolphin Stadium and be televised by Fox (Sunflower Broadband channel 4).

It’s not the big enchilada – LSU and Ohio State are playing in the BCS National Championship Game on Jan. 7 – but it’s one heck of a prize for a program nowhere near the Orange Bowl’s radar just one year ago.

Perhaps, a dream ending to a dream season?

“You can dream, or you can pursue,” Mangino said. “This is the product of our players and our coaches pursuing this goal and working hard to attain it.

“Maybe some guys dream about it. Maybe some days I did, too. I don’t know. But dreaming is passive. We talk about pursuing. I think that’s the reason why we’re going to the Orange Bowl.”