| 2011 Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | December 31, 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Season | 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Stadium | AT&T Park | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | San Francisco, California | ||||||||||||||||||
| MVP | Terry Hawthorne (Defensive) Nathan Scheelhaase (Offensive) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Favorite | Illinois by 2½[1] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Referee | Jeff Hilyer (Sun Belt) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 29,878 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Payout | US$750,000–825,000 per team | ||||||||||||||||||
| United States TV coverage | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | ESPN | ||||||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Carter Blackburn (Play-by-Play) Brock Huard (Analyst) Shelley Smith (Sidelines) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Nielsen ratings | 2.3 | ||||||||||||||||||
The 2011 Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, the 10th edition of the game, was a post-season American college football bowl game, held on December 31, 2011 at AT&T Park in San Francisco, California as part of the 2011–12 NCAA Bowl season.
The game, which was telecast at 12:30 p.m. Pacific Time (3:30 p.m. Eastern Time) on ESPN, featured the UCLA Bruins (6–7) versus the Illinois Fighting Illini (6–6). The Bruins, with a losing record, were granted a waiver to play in a bowl game by the NCAA after the Pac-12 conference did not have enough eligible teams to fill its bowl commitments.[2][3][4] Both teams fired their head coach this season after .500 records.[note 1] Mike Johnson, who replaced Rick Neuheisel, is the interim coach for UCLA. The Fighting Illini were led by interim coach Vic Koenning while their newly hired head coach Tim Beckman, who replaced Ron Zook, was on the sidelines. UCLA lost the matchup and subsequently finished the season with a losing record (6–8).[5]
The conference has seven bowl-eligible teams. Oregon will go to the Rose Bowl and Stanford is also expected to land in a Bowl Championship Series bowl, perhaps the Fiesta, leaving five teams for six Pac-12-affiliated bowls.
Under NCAA rules, the conference would have to fill all its bowl commitments before a waiver would be granted.
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