By Mike Pearson
FightingIllini.com

Box Score | Recap | Notes | Highlights

A distinctively unorthodox season ended in an equally unconventional way when the University of Illinois met UCLA at the 2011 Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl.

Set on a picture-perfect, sixty-degree New Year's Eve day in San Francisco, the game pitted the 6-6 Fighting Illini against the 6-7 UCLA Bruins. Both teams were in the unenviable transition of coaching staff changes, so interim head coaches Vic Koenning of the Illini and Mike Johnson of the Bruins employed "anything goes" attitudes.

Illinois had won its first six games of 2011, consecutively dispatching Arkansas State, South Dakota State, Arizona State, Western Michigan, Northwestern and Indiana. Its best start since 1951 enabled the Illini to rise to No. 16 in the college football rankings.

However, Illinois' second half-dozen games ended in diametrically opposite fashion, bowing competitively to Ohio State, Purdue, Penn State, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. When head coach Ron Zook was terminated on Nov. 27, Koenning, UI's defensive coordinator, was assigned to lead the Illini in its bowl game.

"Coach Vic had a lot of respect from the players for who he was and what he stood for," said former Illini quarterback Nate Scheelhaase, now an assistant coach at Iowa State. "For the coaches who were left, we definitely had a good feel for them and they had a good feel for us. There wasn't any doubt that we were going to play hard for those guys."

Junior defensive end Whitney Mercilus agreed with his former teammate.

"When Vic was named, it definitely eased the transition from Coach Zook, especially for the defense," Mercilus said. "Like Coach Zook, Vic was very much a players' coach and he cared a lot for his guys."

Interim Illini coach Vic Koenning hoists the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl trophy. Koenning went 1-0 as Illinois head coach.  

A second assistant coach who had a particularly positive influence upon Scheelhaase was quarterbacks coach Jeff Brohm, now the head man at Purdue.

"Knowing his track record now," Scheelhaase said, "it's no surprise that Coach Brohm had a good pulse on what was going on and what we needed."

Illinois had significant goals to achieve going into its battle versus UCLA, highlighted by the opportunity to win bowl games in back-to-back seasons for the first time in school history.

Playing for the first time in 35 days, both teams' first half performance was largely unproductive. Koenning felt fortunate that his Illini were able to narrow their halftime deficit to 7-3 when Derek Dimke connected on a 36-yard field goal as time expired.

The third quarter was similarly lackluster, but momentum crept onto the Illini's side late in the period when cornerback Terry Hawthorne stepped in front of a Kevin Prince pass intended for Shaq Evans and took the ball 39 yards into the end zone for a pick-six. That put Illinois up 10-7 heading into the fourth and final quarter.

Said Hawthorne, the Defensive MVP of the Game, to reporters about his interception, "For me, it was all gas, no brakes. Once I catch it, I'm gone."

[LEFT] Cornerback Terry Hawthrone's 39-yard pick-six put the Illini in front for good. [RIGHT] Tavon Wilson and Hawthorne show off bowl win hardware.  

Echoed linebacker Jonathan Brown, "T's play was big. Big players make big plays in big-time situations, and that changed the whole complexion of the game."

On Illinois' very next possession, a weaving 37-yard run by Scheelhaase set up Dimke for a second field goal, extending the Illini lead to 13-7.

"Going into the game, we had a lot of plays that were designed for quarterback runs," said Scheelhaase, who wound up with a game-high 110 rushing yards on 22 carries. "Shoot, anytime there's a bowl game, the quarterback should always feel like he can run because there aren't any games left to play."

After a Tavon Wilson sack forced UCLA to punt with nine minutes remaining, Illinois mounted a potential game-clinching drive from its own 26. Consecutive runs by Troy Pollard, two by Scheelhaase, and a fourth by Donovonn Young got the Orange and Blue to the 40-yard line. On third-down-and-eight, Scheelhaase dropped three steps back and fired a strike to senior wide receiver A.J. Jenkins who was slanting from left to right. No. 8 glided untouched into the end zone to ice the game.

A meaningless UCLA touchdown in the last sixty seconds was the final score in Illinois' 20-14 victory.

Whitney Mercilus (85) had 3.0 TFLs and 1.5 sacks in the win over UCLA to cap one of the best seasons in Illini history. He finished his first-team All-American season with 16 sacks and nine forced fumbles, both most in the nation, and 22.5 tackles-for-loss, second-most in the nation. 

Perhaps the biggest impact in the game was made by Illinois' relentless defensive unit. Led by All-America end Whitney Mercilus, the Illini recorded quarterback five sacks and notched six other tackles for loss. That helped limit the Bruins to just 14 first downs, 18 rushing yards and 219 total yards.

"UCLA probably wasn't the stud team that they usually were," said Mercilus. "We played well that day and it was a great game for our defense to show our stuff."  

Afterwards, Koenning praised his team's effort to the media.

"Our guys were winners," he said. "They were winning in everything they did. (Vince) Lombardi said it better than anybody could ever say it, 'Winning isn't a sometime thing. It's an all the time thing. And the winning attitude that our players brought into the game translated into victory today."

On December 30th, Illinois goes "bear hunting" again in San Francisco, this time against the Golden Bears of California. And while there'll be no taxidermy trophy to be hung on the wall of the Smith Family Performance Center, Coach Lovie Smith would love to bag an unexpected seventh victory for his ever-improving program.