2011 Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl (December)

2011 Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl
Illinois Fighting Illini UCLA Bruins (6–6) (6–7) 20 14 Head coach:  Vic Koenning Head coach:  Mike Johnson
1 2 3 4 Total Illinois 0 3 7 10 20 UCLA 0 7 0 7 14
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
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
Fight Hunger Bowl  < 2011 (Jan) 2012 >

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. Both teams fired their head coach this season after .500 records.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).

Since 1946, the two universities had met 11 times with three previous meetings in a bowl game (1947 Rose Bowl, 1984 Rose Bowl and 1991 Hancock Bowl). UCLA held a 6–5 edge over Illinois, including winning the last four games. The last game prior to this one was in 2004, when UCLA defeated Illinois 35–17.

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