South Carolina Gamecocks to Play Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Capital One Bowl

South Carolina has been invited to play the Nebraska Cornhuskers in this year's Capital One Bowl. The Bowl will take place on January 2, 2012 at 1:00 PM ET in Orlando, Florida.

I'll have a lot more to say over the next couple of weeks about the storylines and matchups in this game, but suffice it to say that this is a dream scenario for the Gamecocks. Here are just a few of the things to be happy about:

--After years of getting hosed on bowls selections, this time we were the ones who got the favorable bid, getting a bid in the prestigious Capital One Bowl even though one of the other possibilities beat us head-to-head and the other one won our division.

--Indeed, this is the best bid we've ever gotten.

--The matchup with Nebraska is a favorable one. Nebraska will give us a tough test, but they're a beatable team that we matchup well with. A win will give us our first top-10 finish in school history, as well as a high-profile win over a storied program.

--The bowl should have some fun storylines, including Steve Spurrier's chance to avenge his embarrassing loss to the Huskers in the 1995 national title game.

--The bowl has a nice payout of 4.6 million.

I know there's a lot of angst right now over how some of mediocre teams made BCS bowls due to questionable rules, but the rules being what they are, this selection is about as good as it gets for Carolina. I'm extremely excited about this game, and you should be, too.

I'll have a lot more to say about Nebraska over the next few days. In the meantime, I'd encourage you to visit SB Nation's Nebraska affiliate Corn Nation.