The University of Nevada football team had a pretty good idea who it was practicing for yesterday afternoon when it hit the field even before it was officially offered — and accepted — a bid to play Southern Methodist in the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl.

"The kids were pretty excited," said Wolf Pack coach Chris Ault, who watched "about three-quarters" of Hawai'i's 51-10 loss to Wisconsin on ESPN2 late Saturday night.

Had UH prevailed to finish 7-6, the Warriors would have been paired with former head coach June Jones and SMU (7-5, 6-2 C-USA) in the Dec. 24 Hawai'i Bowl.

But the loss cleared the way for another Western Athletic Conference representative and the 8-4 (7-1 WAC) Wolf Pack, which finished second to unbeaten Boise State, got the bid.

"We're excited to be playing in such a class bowl game and to play SMU," Ault said.

It is a record fifth consecutive bowl appearance for the Wolf Pack. Nevada won the 2005 Hawai'i Bowl with a 49-48 overtime victory over Central Florida.

The Wolf Pack leads the nation in rushing with an average of 362.25 yards per game. SMU is 28th in passing at 267.17 yards per game. And Ault and Jones are familiar rivals having gone head-to-head in the WAC for several years.

Nevada's seniors began to zero in on the Hawai'i Bowl as a possible bowl destination as the Wolf Pack rebounded from an 0-3 start to win eight of its last nine games.

The Wolf Pack's win over UH in Reno on Halloween gave UH a 2-6 record at that point and Nevada a 6-3 mark.

"There was a lot of talk in the locker room about it (the Hawai'i Bowl)" the week of the UH-Nevada game, running back Vai Taua said at the time. Nevada won, 31-21. "The guys who went say Hawai'i (in 2005) is the best (bowl) game to go to," Taua said.

The WAC placed all four of its bowl eligible teams in the postseason with Boise State (13-0, 8-0) going to the Fiesta Bowl, Fresno State (8-4, 6-2) to the New Mexico Bowl and Idaho (7-5, 4-4) to the Boise-based Humanitarian Bowl.

The Hawai'i Bowl started in 2002, and Hawai'i has played in five of the seven games.