The Illinois Fighting Illini and Louisiana Tech Bulldogs are playing live on the college football bowl schedule on Friday and the matchup is the Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl from the Cotton Bowl as the Big Ten and Conference USA schools battle at 1 pm ET on ESPN and streaming online from the WatchESPN website.
Illinois comes in after a win against Northwestern to end the season to finish 6-6 on the season and now they have the 8-5 Bulldogs in this bowl matchup. Louisiana Tech comes in after going 7-1 in their conference and Illinois now is looking to finish the season with a winning record after finishing with two wins in a row to end the season. The team has won three of the last five games and that game after a three game losing streak that included losses to Wisconsin and Nebraska.
LT won the C-USA west division title this season despite losing five starters for academic reasons and now they matchup with Illinois, who had Tim Beckman playing over the final weeks. Cody Sokol is leading the Bulldogs with over 3000 passing yards this season and 29 touchdowns and Kenneth Dixon led with 1236 yards and over 20 touchdowns. Mike Dudek is the player to watch for Illinois, as he has 69 catches for 965 yards and six touchdowns and could be the first receiver for the school at 1000 yards in a number of years.
LT comes into the game scoring 37 points per game and that ranks 13th in the nation and they are averaging over 250 passing yards per contest. The team comes in having lost two of the last three games of the season, including against Marshall and Old Dominion and now they are playing Illinois. The Illini lost against the two ranked teams they played on the schedule and they now are back even after starting the season 3-1.
Check here for the Illinois Fighting Illini and Louisiana Tech live coverage.
