RALEIGH — Like four bowls before theirs, N.C. State and UCLA were unable to play the Holiday Bowl on Tuesday night.
Four hours before kickoff in the San Diego Padres’ Petco Park, the Bruins program through its Twitter account said, “The UCLA football team is unable to participate in tonight’s San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl due to COVID-19 protocols within the Bruins’ program.”
Throughout the rest of the day and deep into the night, the Holiday Bowl worked with N.C. State to find a replacement team. Just after 8 a.m. local time on Wednesday, the bowl issued a statement officially canceling this year’s game. Some of the N.C. State players were flying directly home rather than to Raleigh on Wednesday, eliminating the possibility of another bowl game elsewhere in the country for the Wolfpack.
“After exhausting every possibility and contacting numerous schools personally and through the Holiday Bowl, we have no other option than to end our season,” read a Wednesday statement from N.C. State’s Boo Corrigan, the school athletics director. “As disappointing as this stunning turn of events was, we must not let it diminish the accomplishments of our 2021 football team or forget the moments of joy that they brought us.
“I commend Coach Doeren, his staff and especially our players for making great decisions and doing the right things to ensure that they were ready to play every week and all the way until yesterday. I can’t wait to watch them run it back in 2022.”
The no contest outcome leaves N.C. State a win shy of achieving 10 for the season, something that has happened just one other time in the program’s long history. The Wolfpack next takes the field on Labor Day Saturday at East Carolina, which also was unable to play its bowl game because the opponent backed out.
N.C. State head coach Dave Doeren didn’t mince words, saying, “Felt lied to, to be honest. We felt like UCLA probably knew something was going on with their team and didn’t tell anyone on our side. We had no clue they were up against that. I don’t think it was very well handled from their university.”
UCLA’s Martin Jarmond, the athletics director, issued a statement that read, “We are extremely grateful to the Holiday Bowl, students, fans, sponsors and the people of San Diego for their support this week … We are deeply disappointed for our young men in the football program that worked extremely hard for this opportunity. My heart goes out to them. The health and safety of our students will always be our North Star.”
N.C. State went 9-3 this year, finishing 6-2 and runner-up to Wake Forest in the ACC’s Atlantic Division. The Wolfpack has won nine games in three of the last five years. State was trying to win its first bowl game since defeating Arizona State 52-31 in the Sun Bowl following the 2017 season.
This became the fifth bowl game canceled within the past week.
The others before it were Friday’s Hawaii Bowl (because of Hawaii), Monday’s Military Bowl (Boston College), Wednesday’s Fenway Bowl (Virginia) and this week’s Arizona Bowl (Boise State). Texas A&M had to withdraw from Friday’s Gator Bowl because of COVID-19 issues, but Rutgers was found as a replacement to play Wake Forest in the game. Central Michigan, which was to play Boise State in the Arizona Bowl, was shifted to the Sun Bowl to play Washington State after Miami had to pull out of the El Paso game.
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