Cotton Bowl-bound: Baylor to face Michigan State on New Year’s Day

Saturday night, Baylor football became back-to-back champions of one of the nation’s top two conferences. Sunday, we learned that the Bears are headed to the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, where No. 5 Baylor will face No. 8 Michigan State on New Year’s Day (11:30 a.m. CT, ESPN).

The Bears’ resume was enough to convince Associated Press members that Baylor belonged among the nation’s top four teams — but not enough to convince the College Football Playoff committee to include BU in its final four. Head coach Art Briles’ squad came in 5th in the final CFP rankings, behind Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State.

The Cotton Bowl will mark Baylor’s fifth straight bowl under Briles — a first for the program — and a win would presumably keep the Bears in the top 5 when final rankings are released, which would be the best in school history.

[Get your 2014 Big 12 Champs and Baylor Cotton Bowl gear here from the Baylor Bookstore.]

The Cotton Bowl — long the state of Texas’ showcase bowl game — will pit Baylor against Michigan State, which finished the regular season 10-2 and second in the Big 10 East (behind playoff-bound Ohio State). The Spartans’ only losses of the season came at No. 2 Oregon (46-27 in September) and at home to No. 4 Ohio State (49-37 in November).

The Cotton Bowl’s tradition-rich history made it a hard-to-get ticket even before the match-up was announced. Most of Baylor’s allotment was claimed during the pre-order process; the few leftover tickets are now available to the general public at $150 each for the moment, being made available only to 2014 football season ticket holders. Fans looking to purchase those tickets may do so by logging in to their ticket account at baylorbears.com/tickets. The Cotton Bowl has sold out of its inventory. Baylor is the home team, so Bear fans will be seated on the Cowboys sideline.

A limited number of travel packages are available through Anthony Travel. A student package is also in the works, as are plans for Baylor Alumni Network events in the Metroplex leading up to the game. Visit baylor.edu/fanzone and baylorbears.com/bowlcentral for all this information and other updates throughout the month.

Sic ’em, bowl-bound Bears!