2015 New Orleans Bowl


The 2015 New Orleans Bowl was a postseason American college football bowl game played on December 19, 2015 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. The 15th edition of the New Orleans Bowl featured the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs from Conference USA against the Arkansas State Red Wolves of the Sun Belt Conference. It began at 8:00 p.m. CST and air on ESPN. It was one of the 2015–16 bowl games that concludes the 2015 FBS football season. Sponsored by freight shipping company R+L Carriers, it was officially known as the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl.

Teams

The game featured the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs against the Arkansas State Red Wolves. It was the 38th overall meeting between the schools, with Louisiana Tech leading the series 25–12 before this game. The last meeting between these two teams was in 1998, when the Bulldogs beat the Indians 69–21 in Jonesboro.

Arkansas State Red Wolves

Sources told ESPN reporter Brett McMurphy that the Red Wolves had officially been invited to the game and accepted.
This was the Red Wolves' second trip to the New Orleans Bowl; they had previously played in the 2005 game, losing to the Southern Miss Golden Eagles by a score of 31–19. Notably, that game was played at Cajun Field in nearby Lafayette because of damage to the Superdome done by Hurricane Katrina.

Louisiana Tech Bulldogs

This was the Bulldogs' second straight bowl appearance under third-year head coach Skip Holtz, following a 35–18 victory over Illinois in the 2014 Heart of Dallas Bowl. Holtz had a 3–3 career record in bowl games as head coach at Louisiana Tech, South Florida and East Carolina. The Louisiana Tech program entered 3–3–1 all-time in FBS bowl games.

Game summary

Scoring summary

Source:

Statistics

StatisticsARSTLa. Tech
First downs2326
Plays–yards68–32374–687
Rushes–yards39–17736–229
Passing yards146458
Passing: Comp–Att–Int15–29–226–38–0
Time of possession25:1334:47

TeamCategoryPlayerStatistics
ARSTPassingFredi Knighten14/28, 137 yds, 2 INT
ARSTRushingWarren Wand12 car, 66 yds, 1 TD
ARSTReceivingTres Houston3 rec, 47 yds
La. TechPassingJeff Driskel26/38, 458 yds, 3 TD
La. TechRushingBoston Scott4 car, 106 yds
La. TechReceivingTrent Taylor10 rec, 149 yds, 1 TD