‘We can’t find anyone’ to replace UCLA in Holiday Bowl, NC State AD says
Updated, 9 p.m., with new information on N.C. State’s search for an opponent.
After talking to “north of 10 teams” in the wake of the cancellation of Tuesday’s Holiday Bowl, N.C. State athletic director Boo Corrigan said no potential opponent had yet emerged to replace UCLA.
And while Corrigan said he and Holiday Bowl officials would continue to “exhaust all options” until the Wolfpack had to depart for the airport on Wednesday, the reality was there just weren’t many left, short of a team pulling out of another bowl game Tuesday night that would also be able to make a last-second cross-country flight.
“We can’t find anyone,” Corrigan told The News & Observer. “The bowl game has been great. The ACC has been great. We just can’t.”
Holiday Bowl spokesman Rick Schloss said the bowl has discussed other potential broadcast windows with Fox, should an opponent emerge.
“The entire SDCCU Holiday Bowl family is heartbroken that we were not able to play the bowl game tonight,” Holiday Bowl CEO Mark Neville said in a statement released by the bowl. “We do not want to cancel the game officially until we have exhausted every opportunity to find a replacement team, and we are working closely with Boo Corrigan and his great athletics staff at N.C. State.”
When N.C. State was told UCLA was pulling out of the bowl less than three hours before its buses were due to leave the hotel, the reaction was full of anger and frustration – and not merely because the Wolfpack was deprived a chance to win a 10th game for only the second time in school history.
UCLA’s late withdrawal due to COVID issues within its program left the Wolfpack with what Corrigan called “a very limited window” to find another opponent to play in San Diego or arrange another game elsewhere, a matter of only a few hours Tuesday afternoon and evening with N.C. State scheduled to return to Raleigh on Wednesday on three charter planes.
“You’re looking at who’s canceled already, those are kind of the logical teams and you start talking about that,” Corrigan said. “And where does the Holiday Bowl fit in, and playing the game out here? How soon could they get here? Again, hotels, everything else that kind of goes into it, what’s the right amount of time to keep our young people here to be able to do that? We’re trying to figure out anything that we can.”
The timing was particularly frustrating for N.C. State given that school officials said UCLA offered no warning that it had such serious COVID issues within the program. That might have given N.C. State and the Holiday Bowl time to explore contingency options, rather than leave it to a mad rush Tuesday afternoon.
“We had no clue they were up against that,” Doeren said. “I don’t feel like it was very well handled from their university. It would have been great to have a heads-up that this could happen so maybe two or three days ago we could have found a Plan B. Disappointing.”
By Tuesday afternoon, the options were slim.
East Carolina, which lost its chance to play in the Military Bowl when Boston College pulled out, declined. Athletic director Jon Gilbert said Monday that the Pirates’ season was “now completed” and he relayed the same message to Corrigan on Tuesday.
Southern Methodist, which lost its spot in the Fenway Bowl when Virginia pulled out, also declined. Their players had already departed campus.
Memphis said after returning from Hawaii, where it was supposed to play Hawaii only for the host to cancel, that the long trip had been difficult enough.
There was a slim chance that 5-7 San Jose State might be available, but the Spartans had not played since Thanksgiving and would need time to rally their team and practice.
“That’s the hard part, right? Trying to figure out who’s available, who’s still around,” Corrigan said. “People have been canceled out of games and then they let them go. All of a sudden they’re home and trying to reconvene them. We started that conversation immediately.”
For the players, still reeling from the shock, there was some solace in clinging to whatever shreds of hope that they might have another game.
“I’ll go wherever,” N.C. State linebacker Drake Thomas said. “Wherever they want to call us to, I’ll go play a bowl game. I want to play this last game with this group of guys. Whatever opportunity presents itself, I’m all in.”
This story was originally published December 28, 2021 at 5:56 PM.
