After the Cal football team polished off its 48-7 win over Washington, Gary Cavalli was waiting for the Bears with a gem of his own.

Cavalli, the executive director of the Emerald Bowl, extended a bid to Cal on Saturday afternoon. The Bears accepted, and it was officially announced on Sunday that they will play Miami (Fla.) at AT&T Park in San Francisco on Dec. 27.

"We've been hoping to get Cal ever since the game was founded," Cavalli said.

Due to the close proximity, the Emerald Bowl will be a home game of sorts for Cal (8-4, 6-3 in the Pac-10), which finished the season as the fourth-place team in the conference. This also marks the first time in its seven-year history that the Emerald Bowl will feature a prominent Bay Area team, which promises to increase local interest in the game.

"The Emerald Bowl has had a reputation for putting on a great bowl, really treating the team fantastically, which is our number one priority," Cal athletic director Sandy Barbour said. "And the opportunity at any time, but particularly in this economy, for our fans, for us to be able to have 20-30,000 fans, I think is a real plus for us."

Barbour also said that she thinks the players will be pleasantly surprised by their bowl experience, despite not traveling far from home.

"The concept is just to make sure it's something special for them," she said. "It's not just a regular-season game."

The Hurricanes, on the other hand, will make the cross-country trip to play the Bears for the fourth time in school history. Miami leads the all-time series 2-1.

"I'm from the old school where I still think, in a bowl game, there should be two intersectional opponents who don't play each other much," Cavalli said.

Still, the Hurricanes (7-5, 4-4 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) have some Bay Area ties. Pinole, Calif., native Gino Torretta won a Heisman Trophy playing quarterback for Miami in 1992-something that, according to Cavalli, increases the Hurricanes' already high profile in Northern California.

"Miami's one of the all-time great programs," Cavalli said. "They've won five national championships. It's a name everybody recognizes, that logo with the 'U.'

"I think Miami has national cachet, and because of Gino, has local cachet. Hard to do better than that."

Furthermore, Cal tailback Jahvid Best said after the Washington game that the Hurricanes were his favorite college football team growing up. The sophomore added that he might have considered playing at Miami, but that the East Coast power did not recruit him out of Salesian High.

Senior linebacker Worrell Williams, meanwhile, just seemed happy with another shot at an ACC opponent, in light of the Bears' 35-27 loss to Maryland in September.

"That'll be good to redeem ourselves to those guys out there," Williams said. "And I don't even care who we play. I've got another game to play, one more chance to show what I've got to all the fans out there. It's an exciting thing."

• All-Pac-10 Teams Announced

Best, senior center Alex Mack, linebacker Zack Follett and cornerback Syd'Quan Thompson were all named to the first-team all-Pac-10 on Monday.

It was the third time that Mack has been chosen for the first team and the second for Best, who garnered the honors for his special teams play as a freshman in 2007.

Best finished the season as the Pac-10's leading rusher with 1,394 yards, and currently ranks fifth in the country with an average of 126.7 yards per game. The sophomore leapfrogged Oregon State freshman Jacquizz Rodgers-who was named the conference's offensive player of the year-with 512 rushing yards in his final two games. His average of 8.0 yards per carry is the top mark in the nation among backs with 125 or more carries.

Follett, meanwhile, finished second in the Pac-10 in tackles for loss and fourth in sacks. The senior was a semifinalist for the Chuck Bednarik award, given to the nation's best defensive player, and was named Cal's defensive MVP at the team's awards banquet on Saturday.

Thompson recorded a team-high four interceptions and finished fourth in the conference with 16 passes defended.

Offensive guard Noris Malele, defensive end Tyson Alualu and freshman punter Bryan Anger were all named to the all-conference second team.

Tags: JAHVID BEST, SYD'QUAN THOMPSON, EMERALD BOWL, JEFF TEDFORD, CAL FOOTBALL