BATON ROUGE — After LSU upset No. 2 Tennessee in the SEC Championship game on Saturday evening, the Sugar Bowl officially extended an invitation on Sunday for the Tigers to meet No. 7 Illinois in the 2001 BCS game on Jan. 1 at 7:30 p.m. CST.
LSU (9-3, 6-3 SEC), which moved to No. 12 in both the USA Today/ESPN Coaches’ Poll and the AP writers’ poll on Sunday, returned from Atlanta early Sunday morning after winning its first outright league title since 1986, 31-20.
Ilinois (10-1, 7-1 Big Ten) won its league by one game and won seven straight games to end the season. The Illini are ranked No. 7 in both polls.
LSU and Illinois have never met in football.
LSU has won four straight bowl games and has not lost a bowl game since 1989. Although this is LSU’s 11th trip to New Orleans for the New Year’s Day bowl, the Tigers have not been to the Sugar Bowl since losing to Nebraska, 30-15, on Jan. 1, 1987.
Illinois has never played in the Sugar Bowl, but has won its past two bowl games in 1994 and 1999.
Sugar Bowl Teleconference
Coach Saban Quotes
“I want to congratulate Ron (Turner) knowing what he has done to rebuild the program. Knowing the quality of the league it was a tremendous accomplishment for them to go 10-1 and win the conference championship.”
“We’re really excited to represent the SEC in the Sugar Bowl. We feel the Sugar Bowl is one of the best bowls in the country and for us to have an opportunity to play in New Orleans and to play in the state of Louisiana is really exciting for us and our fans. To play against a quality opponent like Illinois representing a great league really makes it a great Sugar Bowl.”
“He (Kurt Kitner) was a young player when we played him. We had a real good defensive team at Michigan State and it was a very competitive game. We had a difficult time defending him. I think Ron (Turner) does an excellent job with the offense and what they do at Illinois. I know from playing against him in the past he will be a real challenge for our defense to contain.”
“We are in our second year trying to build a program here. We were favored to win the West after winning eight games last year and I think that pressure caused us to play with a little inconsistency. There were times we didn’t play good football and it cost us. We lost to some good football teams though. Since that time I think we’ve played some good teams and we’ve played with a lot of consistency. I’m pleased with the fact that we were able to rebound from some early season inconsistency and bounce back to win the SEC.”