Iowa’s underdog going to Orange Bowl

The third-ranked Iowa football team leaves for Miami tomorrow and the January 2nd Orange Bowl against fifth-ranked USC. Iowa center Bruce Nelson says diversity on the offensive line has helped make them a stronger unit in this record-setting season. Nelson says winning fixes a lot of things and he says team members are really interested in learning about one another’s backgrounds. He says no one has been interested in making the long trip to his northern Iowa home of Emmettsberg, but they did take some other trips. After viewing some film, Nelson says they’ll need to have a great team effort from the line to win the Orange Bowl. Nelson says there’s no doubt USC deserves to be ranked so high, and the Hawks will have their hands full next week. He says the Trojans’ biggest strength is their speed, and are a very disciplined defensive unit. Iowa goes into the game as the underdog, the same way they started the season. “We wouldn’t know what to do if it was the other way around,” Nelson says. “This is a good problem we don’t mind; maybe a chip on our shoulder that we can utilize.” Nelson was named first-team all Big Ten and first team all-America by two organizations.