The 2017 New Orleans Bowl was a

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivis ...

played on December 16, 2017, at the

Mercedes-Benz Superdome The Caesars Superdome, commonly known as the Superdome (formerly known as Mercedes-Benz Superdome), is a multi-purpose stadium located in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana. It is the home stadium of the New Orleans Saints ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The 17th edition of the

New Orleans Bowl The New Orleans Bowl is an NCAA-sanctioned post-season college football bowl game that has been played annually since 2001. It is normally held at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans; when the Superdome and the rest of the city suffered damage due to ...

featured the

Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001. Its football teams participa ...

co-champion

Troy Trojans The Troy Trojans are the sports teams of Troy University. They began playing in the NCAA's Division I-A in 2001, became a football only member of the Sun Belt Conference in 2004, and joined that conference for all other sports in 2005. Troy Univer ...

against the

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...

West Division champion

North Texas Mean Green North Texas Mean Green (formerly North Texas Eagles) represents the University of North Texas (UNT) in intercollegiate athletics. The teams compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). North Texas competed in th ...

. It began at 1 P.M. EST and aired on

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. It was one of the 2017–18 bowl games that concluded the 2017 FBS football season. Sponsored by freight company

R+L Carriers R+L Carriers is a privately owned American freight shipping company based in Wilmington, Ohio, which grew over the course of 50 years from one truck to a fleet of 21,000 tractors and trailers. The company serves all 48 contiguous American states ...

, the game was officially known as the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl. Troy defeated North Texas, 50–30.

Teams

The game featured the

against the

. It was the eleventh all-time meeting between the schools; with Troy's victory, it now leads the series 9–2. The Trojans and Mean Green played together in the Sun Belt from 2004 until 2012, when North Texas joined Conference USA.Troy Trojans vs. North Texas Mean Green series history
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Troy Trojans

This was the Trojans' fourth New Orleans Bowl; their record in the game is now 2–2, as they previously won the

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and

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editions of the game and lost in

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North Texas Mean Green

This was the Mean Green's fifth New Orleans Bowl, moving them into a two-way tie with

Southern Miss The University of Southern Mississippi (Southern Miss or USM) is a public research university with its main campus located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bachelor's, ma ...

for most appearances in that game (not counting Louisiana–Lafayette's two vacated bowl wins). The Mean Green's New Orleans Bowl record is now 1–4, with their only win in the game coming in

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

over

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

. It was the Mean Green's first New Orleans Bowl as a representative of Conference USA; their four previous appearances had all been as a Sun Belt member. The Mean Green went 9–3 overall (7–1 in conference) in the regular season, losing to SMU (54–32), Iowa (31–14), and FAU (69–31). They lost again to FAU (41–17) in the C-USA title game to bring their record to 9–4 (7–2).

Game summary

On Troy's 1st drive, they faced an early third down. QB Brandon Silvers found

Damion Willis Damion Lakeith Willis (born June 20, 1997) is an American football wide receiver for the Memphis Showboats of the United Football League (UFL). He played college football at Troy and signed with the Cincinnati Bengals as an undrafted free agent ...

for the first down. Later in the drive, Silvers found Willis for a beautiful pass-and-catch and found Sam Letton down to the North Texas 1-yard line. Senior RB Josh Anderson scored from a yard out to give Troy a 7–0 lead. On North Texas' second play from scrimmage, Jamal Stadom sacked QB

Mason Fine Mason Fine (born April 19, 1997) is an American football quarterback for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL). He played college football at North Texas. Early years Fine, who is one-quarter Cherokee, grew up in P ...

and forced a fumble which Troy recovered at the 14-yard line. It took Troy just two plays to score as Silvers found Willis for 8 yards, and Anderson scored again from 2 yards out. Troy went for a two-point conversion, and Silvers found John Johnson in the back of the end zone for a 15–0 lead. Troy forced a three-and-out and got the ball back. However, on third-and-7, Joshua Wheeler sacked Silvers and Troy had to punt to North Texas. Mason Fine led a drive in which he found Rico Bussey for a 12-yard TD. Brandon Silvers then led a drive in which he found Damion Willis for a 22–7 lead.

Scoring summary

Statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:New Orleans Bowl 2017–18 NCAA football bowl games

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2017 in sports in Louisiana December 2017 sports events in the United States