Penn State head coach, James Franklin and Husky coach, Chris Petersen spoke with the media today following the announcement that they would face eachother in the Fiesta Bowl on December 30th.

Washington and Penn State have only played each other three times in history; the last time being in the early 80’s. So this will be the first time in the modern era.

“There’s no better bowl”, Petersen said about the Fiesta, reminding us that he’d been there twice while  with Boise State playing Oklahoma and TCU (he’s 2-0 at the bowl game), “There was a lot of jumping around and smiling faces.”

The coach learned of the announcement from the bowl  committee while the Huskies were practicing today in Seattle, as did Franklin and his Penn State players.

“It made our whole month…and our whole season”, Petersen said.

Franklin said he’s “honored and humbled and blessed for this opportunity…It’s a big time bowl…And a challenging opponent…I’m a huge fan of Chris Petersen.”

He’s also old friends with guys like Jimmy Lake and Bush Hamdan, who was named the offensive coordinator at UW today, “Bush was a grad assistant at Maryland”, Franklin said, “He’s a great person and a great coach.”

Speaking of Hamdan, Petersen did say that, as of right now, Hamdan won’t be joining the team until his season is over with the Falcons, so it’s unlikely he will be with the team in Arizona for the bowl game. Coach also added that there’s still decisions being made regarding who will be calling the plays and designing the offense for the bowl game.

Franklin and Petersen have a great relationship as coaches and friends, in fact, their wives are good friends.

One thing Franklin said about the Husky defense is that “they’re big, strong, physical and fast”, and he said that he watched them during the season and even sent out an article about them to his assistants.