NC State football weekly bowl projections
NC State football ensured a bowl bid with the 22-21 comeback win over Virginia Tech on Oct. 27. After the Pack rallied from a 21-3 deficit in the second half, fans went from worrying about if NC State would even be bowl eligible to now wondering where it could go for the holidays.
If the season ended today, the projections are surprisingly in general agreement: Charlotte for the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, which is a noon kickoff on ESPN on Friday, Dec. 30. The opponent would be an old friend: Maryland.
That is the choice of four of the seven bowl projections surveyed by The Wolfpacker. NC State and Maryland have played each other 70 times with a 33-33-4 record in the series.
Among those projecting the Pack in that game are the combination of Stewart Mandel and Scott Dochterman of The Athletic, Jerry Palm of CBS Sports and Steve Lassan of Athlon.
Also going with that bowl destination for NC State is Richard Johnson of SI.com, but his picks are interesting for another reason. Clemson, like the other projections viewed by The Wolfpacker, is the choice to win the ACC and represent the league in the Orange Bowl.
However, Johnson also has North Carolina going to the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa on Jan. 2 against Arkansas. That game is a noon kick on ESPN2. Technically, Johnson’s pick seems to misread the ACC bowl agreement. The league gets slotted into that contest if the Orange Bowl takes a Big Ten opponent to play the ACC champion. Johnson has Ole Miss playing Clemson.
However, Johnson raises the possibility of a bowl destination for NC State potentially if the Pack were to win out and the chips fall a certain way.
Nick Bromberg of Yahoo! Sports is one of two that had NC State football in the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium. That game kicks off at 2 p.m. Dec. 29 on ESPN. Bromberg’s projected opponent for the Wolfpack is Minnesota.
That would be a rematch of the 2000 MicronPC.com Bowl in Miami when NC State rallied from being down 24-0 in the second quarter to win 38-30. A freshman quarterback by the name of Philip Rivers was the bowl MVP.
However, Bromberg seems to be making a bet that North Carolina wins out until the Heels play Clemson in the conference title contest, and that would be enough to get the Heels a New Year’s Six at-large berth in the Cotton Bowl against Tulane.
NC State is just one spot behind UNC in the updated College Football Playoff rankings, raising the possibility that if the Pack were to win out, which would include a win at North Carolina at 3:30 p.m., on Friday, Nov. 25, that perhaps NC State could sneak into a New Year’s Six game.
ESPN’s Mark Schlabach also has NC State in New York, but playing Purdue instead.
The outlier of the bowl projections we viewed was Schlabach’s partner Kyle Bonagura, who sends NC State to the Gator Bowl vs. Kentucky on Dec. 30 at 3:30 p.m. on ESPN. However, that seems farfetched. The Pack has played in Jacksonville following the regular seasons in 2018 and 2020, and a third trip in a five-year span is not likely. Furthermore, the two played each other in that 2021 Gator Bowl, a game won by the Wildcats, 23-21.
