DENVER — The most famous road trip since "Animal House" rocks on.

Big Ben, The Bus and all those Terrible Towels will make the next stop on their wildly successful road trip at the Super Bowl in Detroit, thanks to a 34-17 dismantling of the Denver Broncos yesterday in the AFC title game.

"We were sitting, looking at an outside shot to be in the Super Bowl," Steelers linebacker Clark Haggans said. "This is an unbelievable feeling to be here right now."

Unbelievable and almost unprecedented.

Led by 275 yards and two passing touchdowns from Ben Roethlisberger and a touchdown by Jerome Bettis, the Steelers became the first team since the 1985 Patriots to win three road playoff games en route to the Super Bowl. Counting the regular season, they've played five of their final six away from Pittsburgh.

And while there's no Otter or Boon — the character who called for a road trip when things got tough for the Delta House fraternity in "Animal House" — this Pittsburgh group has plenty of characters of its own.

There's Bettis, The Bus, who stuck around for a 13th year with hopes of playing in his first Super Bowl, in his hometown of Detroit.

There's Roethlisberger, Big Ben, the second-year quarterback who looked every bit the veteran in this one, completing 21 of 29 passes and keeping the Steelers going on six of seven crucial third-down situations in the first half.

There's the coach, jut-jawed Bill Cowher, who worked the sideline in his usual manner, jabbing his finger at Bettis, then hugging him, smiling and scowling, too. This was tough love at its best — and good enough to move the Steelers back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1995.

And all those loyal Pittsburgh fans. An estimated 8,000 came to Denver and they stayed well after the game, waving their Terrible Towels in the corner of Denver's Invesco Field until security finally had to ask them to leave.

"It feels great today, I'll tell you that," owner Dan Rooney said. "The coach already told me we're going to the Super Bowl to win it, not just to be there."

Outschemed, outplayed and pushed around all day, the Broncos (14-4) shuffled off to their locker room, heads down, after their first home loss in 10 tries this season.

"We did not complete the mission and it's frustrating," linebacker Ian Gold said. "But anytime you make it to the AFC championship game and you lose, you hope to lose to a team like that."

Indeed, it's hard to deny the Steelers (14-5) are deserving. Their next game will be against Seattle in Super Bowl XL.

Against Denver, the Steelers came out passing, not running, much the same way they did when they upset Indianapolis last week. Roethlisberger called pass plays on seven of Pittsburgh's first 11 snaps and threw completions on five of those.

The first drive resulted in a field goal. On Denver's next possession, Pittsburgh's Joey Porter blitzed to force a Jake Plummer fumble. Five plays later, Roethlisberger hit Cedrick Wilson for a touchdown and a 10-0 lead, quieting the Invesco Field crowd much as the Steelers did in Indy last week and Cincinnati the week before.

After a Denver field goal, the Steelers essentially salted this game with a 14-play, 80-yard drive that ate up nearly 7 1/2 minutes and had the Broncos defense totally off balance and gasping for air.

Bettis capped it by bulling in from the 3 for a 17-3 lead to put him well on his way to the Super Bowl. Cowher smiled for that one, remembering Bettis' near disaster on the goal line last week in Indy.

"This is a great group of guys, how we got here, we're a different team," Cowher said. "We're a focused team, no matter what's happened, we've stayed together. We've got a resilient group."

The Broncos trailed by two touchdowns, yet they had escaped worse predicaments in the past.

But there was no Drive, no Fumble, no comeback and no you-know-who on the field this day.

Plummer, who had played so well in the lead all season, finally faced some comeback pressure and failed miserably. He went 18 for 30 for 223 yards with two lost fumbles and two interceptions.

He threw one pass underhanded, scrambled for his life and, though valiant as always, proved what had been proved many times before — that he can't do it by himself. He said he woke up with a bit of a cold, but it had no effect on his game.

The Steelers certainly did.

"It's tough," Plummer said. "They were getting after it and when they got a lead, we get one dimensional."

Trailing by two touchdowns late in the first half, Plummer lobbed a pass into the flat that was easily intercepted by Ike Taylor. Moments later, Bettis ran it in from 12 yards for an apparent touchdown on third down.

A penalty nullified that, but it only set up Roethlisberger for his best throw of the day — a 17-yard touchdown that barely cleared the fingertips of Al Wilson and Nick Ferguson, before finding Hines Ward tucked neatly in the back of the end zone.

That made it 24-3.

Roethlisberger was on target all day — 24 yards to Heath Miller, 17 more to Wilson, 21 to Ward and 18 to Wilson again, all after being given ample time against Denver's ill-timed blitz.

"He's the catalyst of our whole offense," Ward said. "The quarterback has to have confidence, or how else will the rest of the 10 guys follow him? He's going out there confident and having trust in his teammates to make plays."

Midway through the fourth quarter, Denver pulled within 27-17 and got the ball back at its 20.

But Plummer lost a fumble on fourth-and-10 and that pretty much made it official: The Steelers would be back in the big game after becoming the first team to beat the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 seeds in the playoffs.