‘We weren’t done.’ Why opting out of a bowl game was not an option for NC State football.
Ikey Ekwonu went to a bowl game last season. It just wasn’t his bowl game.
The N.C. State sophomore offensive lineman watched from the stands as his brother, Osita, a linebacker at Notre Dame, played in The Camping World Bowl. That’s about the extent of Ekwonu’s bowl experience.
“I kind of got a taste of what it’s like,” Ekwonu said. “And I realized I definitely want to be at one next year.”
Wolfpack junior nickel back Tyler Baker-Williams has played in a bowl game before. He was on the roster the last time N.C. State went to the Gator Bowl in 2018. Baker-Williams had one tackle in the 52-13 loss to Texas A&M.
Last year, while other teams were bowling, Baker-Williams was in Raleigh, watching the games on television with his dad.
“We were just sitting at home watching bowl games,” Baker-Williams said. “Just thinking we should have been in a bowl game, we can be in a bowl game with the players we had.”
Baker-Williams was looking ahead to 2020 and he was correct, the Wolfpack had the players to make it to a bowl game and after finishing 8-3, will take on Kentucky (4-6) in a return trip to the Gator Bowl on Jan. 2.
Due to the fluctuating season amid the coronavirus pandemic, there were no-win requirements for bowl games this year. But N.C. State didn’t have to worry -- their eight wins would have been enough to qualify in a normal season. In a pandemic, where nothing is as it should be, the fact that the Wolfpack completed 11 games is nothing short of a miracle.
The Wolfpack had to reschedule a game against Virginia Tech in September after taking a 10-day pause due to COVID-19 protocols, but then started and finished their season with no other issues. That wasn’t the case with other programs as several schools decided to forgo a bowl and stop playing at the end of the regular season.
Seven schools in the ACC opted out of playing in a bowl, choosing instead to let their teams spend the holidays with their families. Baker-Williams, though, wanted to go to a bowl. That was the general consensus throughout the N.C. State program, to finish the job they started.
“Our players and coaches felt like we weren’t done yet,” Wolfpack head coach Dave Doeren said. “We’ve invested a lot to get to this point. It’s the last time this group will get to play together and they wanted to have one more ride.”
A bowl game in a pandemic
This experience will be more like an away game than a bowl trip. The players will still get the gifts that come with making it to a bowl game, but they won’t spend a week in Jacksonville, their time split between practicing and sightseeing the city and various bowl activities. N.C. State will remain in Raleigh to practice and head to Jacksonville the day before the game, just like any other road game.
The game will be the 33rd bowl game in N.C. State history and its fifth trip to the Gator Bowl. One of the most famous Wolfpack wins came in the 2002 Gator Bowl when the Pack, led by quarterback Philip Rivers, knocked off Notre Dame.
This will be the sixth bowl trip in eight seasons under Doeren and a chance to win nine games for the third time since he took over the program in 2013.
After winning just four games in 2019, N.C. State turned things around in 2020, a year when fans might have given the team a pass on the field when so much was happening off of it.
But the Wolfpack, even with adversity, responded and didn’t want to stop after 11 weeks of football. A win over Kentucky, an SEC opponent, would be the perfect way to end the season, so skipping out on a bowl game wasn’t an option.
“Each year is unique,” N.C. State athletic director Boo Corrigan said. “It’s been such a crazy year, but we’ve been so united in where we’ve been this year. All year Coach Doeren has been talking about not blinking, this wasn’t an opportunity to blink, it was an opportunity to move forward.”
Moving ahead in NC State’s DNA
The Wolfpack team didn’t blink when starting quarterback Devin Leary broke his leg in October against Duke. Bailey Hockman was reinserted into the lineup and after a two-game slide against UNC and Miami, the Wolfpack ended the regular season on a four-game win streak. Now they want to extend that streak to five, with a chance to knock off an SEC team, something N.C. State hasn’t done since a win over Vanderbilt in the Independence Bowl in 2016. Regardless of the opponent, the Pack players feel like they’ve gone through too much to walk away now.
In August, the team didn’t even know if it would play. Now, four months later, after completing a full regular season, one last hill to climb awaits N.C. State.
Ekwonu said it’s “in the team’s DNA” to keep moving forward with the bowl game.
“Every time you put the ball down, every time you start something you want to finish it,” Ekwonu said. “I feel like if we opted out of the bowl game that would kind of just be quitting on the season. With the season we’ve had so far we definitely want to finish strong.”
NC State vs. Kentucky: Gator Bowl
When: Noon, Jan. 2
Where: Jacksonville, Florida
Watch: ESPN
This story was originally published December 28, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
