There was no Boxing Day celebration for Illini Nation in the Heart of Dallas Bowl. Illinois lost 35-18 to Louisiana Tech; although the score was much closer than that score indicates.
As you know, we don’t do game recaps here at The Sports Bank, just like I don’t do “play by play” or “live tweeting” of individual games in my Twitter feed.
It’s all big picture features, breaking news stories and/or original commentary here, and those same rules apply to Illini football. So what did we learn about Tim Beckman and Illini football today?
1. Illinois is not the worst team in a bowl game this year, and it’s not even close. There will be much worse bowl teams in the future.
It does seem a bit odd that a team with a -88 scoring differential and a -1,249 yardage differential got a bowl bid, but Illinois is not the worst team in the postseason this year. There are 38 bowl games, which means 76/125 teams get in. As much as we make fun of a lot of these bowls, and their ridiculously bad names they have sometimes, this system is profitable.
Bowls (even the ones with corporate sponsors that none of us have heard of) are profitable because people do buy tickets, and do turn on their television sets to watch. Attendance and ratings may not be great, but it’s still something to do and somewhere to go. There will be more bowls, which means more mediocre to bad teams getting in. Much worse than your 2014 Illini football team.
ESPN has pretty much monopolized the broadcast rights to the bowls, and they’ve done a brilliant job marketing them. Bristol has spaced them out perfectly so it seems like there is always a bowl game on; and at times when there is nothing else on to compete.
The Heart of Dallas Bowl was actually the 4th trending term in the United States for much of the day today.
2. Recruit a KICKER!!!!
If you watched the Heart of Dallas Bowl, or even this Illini football season, no more expounding on this topic is required.
3. If Illini football had any Offensive Line at all, they could really have something on offense
Lunt, Mikey Dudek, Josh Ferguson are pieces. Bill Cubit is a special O Coordinator. That’s potential. Former Illini football player Houston Bates transferred to La Tech to be closer to home. The DE had four and half sacks today all by himself. He also had another tackle for a loss on top of it. He wasn’t the only one; the LT defense was in the ILL backfield all day.
If you watched the Heart of Dallas Bowl, or even this Illini football season, no more expounding on this topic is required
4. Boxing Day celebration at Reilly O’Tooles!
It took until the second half of his final season, but career back-up QB Reilly O’Toole finally started to play up to the level of his recruiting rankings. Better late than never, right? O’Toole was named the team’s offensive MVP; due to the three big wins that he guided the Illini to in the second half of the season. He even earned a “helmet sticker” from ESPN’s Rece Davis on the season’s final Saturday. That is impressive.
Can’t pin this loss today on O’Toole. He threw for nearly 300 yards, and, aside from that pick-six, didn’t make a lot of mistakes. Wes Lunt is obviously much more talented, and is the polar opposite of O’Toole when it comes to NFL potential. However, Lunt padded his numbers this season versus
5. Illini football nuggets and tidbits entering today:
Active #B1G bowl game winning streaks: Michigan State: 3 #Illini: 2 Northwestern: 1 Nebraska: 1 Everyone else: zero
— The Frustrated Fan (@Frustrated_Fan) December 26, 2014
-This is the first bowl game in 15 years where the Illini aren’t playing an opponent in their home state. The last time was the 1999 MicronPC.com Bowl (versus Virginia in Miami, Florida). The other bowls since then (2002 Sugar in New Orleans versus LSU, 2008 Rose in Pasadena versus USC, 2010 Texas in Houston versus Baylor, 2011 Fight Hunger in San Francisco vs UCLA
Illini football bowl history:
This was Illinois’ 18th bowl appearance. Illinois has an all-time record of 8-10 in bowl games.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net ,which is partners with Fox Sports. Read his feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him on KOZN 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks). His work has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Washington Post and ESPN 2