Illinois’ Tarique Barnes (left) and Kenenna Odeluga hound Mississippi State quarterback Will Rogers during the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
Julio Aguilar/Getty Images
TAMPA, Fla. — Illinois came in seeking its first bowl win since beating UCLA on New Year’s Eve in 2011 and its first January bowl win since topping Virginia on New Year’s Day in 1990.
Not to mention the school’s first nine-win season since 2007 and — no small thing — a victory that would clinch an above-.500 record for the Big Ten this postseason.
Alas, No. 22 Mississippi State didn’t allow all that to happen, topping the Illini 19-10 in the ReliaQuest Bowl. In a matchup of 8-4 teams, the Bulldogs went ahead 13-10 on a 27-yard field goal by Massimo Bascardi with four seconds on the clock, then recovered a fumble on a wild kickoff return full of laterals and ran it back for a salt-in-the-wound score.
The lowest-scoring game in the history of this bowl ended with a skirmish between several players at midfield that nearly turned into an all-out brawl. Fortunately, it was broken up before the game was indelibly marred. That would have been an awful way for a game that began with a tribute to late Bulldogs coach Mike Leach, who died in December, to end.
from Chicago Sun-Times - All https://ift.tt/YpEt8lM
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