The article that mentioned that JoePa has taken Penn State to 4 Orange Bowls conveniently left out the fact that the last one was 20 years ago!
Penn State has only been to 1 bowl game in Florida over the last 7 seasons, a Capital One Bowl loss to Auburn 3 years ago.
I still think the Orange will select Penn State, because they see JoePa as a bigger story. And the Fiesta can simply state that tOSU is ahead of Oregon in both human polls and the BCS standings, so there's no problem defending the choice. I'm aware that the BCS bowls have the ability to work things out for the best overall scenario, but when it comes down to it, each bowl's committee members usually do what they think is best for themselves.
As far as fans traveling, both Penn State and tOSU would fill the hotels and restaurants. So the game matchup and expected TV ratings will be the real factor in the choice. The Orange Bowl has a chance to match two 1-loss teams (Va-Tech vs. PSU), or a matchup of the two old coaching legends if FSU wins the ACC game. If that's a 4-loss FSU team (after a loss to Florida), they will prefer the 1-loss Penn State team to tOSU to minimize the total losses of the teams, and to hype the Bowden-JoePa angle.
And once again, if we finish #4 in the BCS standings, that will only guarantee us a BCS at-large bid if #3 is NOT a BCS at-large team. If Texas loses in their conference championship game, we could end up being screwed out of the BCS bid by a ND team that is lower in the BCS rankings. Just another reason to hate ND, and to hold off painting those end zones.
edit - changed since USC has locked up Pac-10 automatic after Oregon's win Saturday.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->