NC State football weekly bowl projections
NC State football suffered a forgettable loss last Saturday to Boston College. Did that damage the Wolfpack’s bowl chances? A look at the various bowl projections out there suggests perhaps not.
A week ago, the consensus (although not unanimous) had NC State going to Charlotte on Dec. 30 for a noon kickoff on ESPN in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. Four of the seven bowl projections had NC State in that game, with most pairing the Wolfpack against former ACC rival Maryland.
This week, The Wolfpacker surveyed eight projections, and still the most frequently chosen was Charlotte, although the number was down to three.
CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm, Athlon’s Steve Lasson and CollegeFootballNews.com each have NC State in Charlotte, but all with different opposition. Palm pairs the Pack up with Illinois, Lasson keeps Maryland as the opponent and CFN goes with Iowa.
Last week, Scott Dochterman and Stewart Mandel of The Athletic had NC State in Charlotte against Maryland. This time they made a dramatic change that showed a potential lack of homework on their part. The new projection is NC State playing in the Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa, Fla., on Dec. 23 against Connecticut on ESPN.
However, NC State has already defeated Connecticut, 41-10, in Week 4. A rematch of a regular season game is highly unlikely.
Nick Bromberg of Yahoo! Sports is holding with his pick of the Pack going to the Pinstripe Bowl in New York. That game kicks off at 2 p.m. Dec. 29 on ESPN. Bromberg’s projected opponent for the Wolfpack is still 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 MVP of that bowl game.
ESPN’s Mark Schlabach used to have NC State in New York, but this week switched the Pack to Washington, D.C., for the Military Bowl against Houston. That’s a 2 p.m. kickoff on ESPN on Dec. 28.
His counterpart on ESPN.com, Kyle Bonagura, backed off a previous choice of NC State vs. Kentucky in the Gator Bowl (which was an unlikely matchup). Bonagura now predicts the Wolfpack will go back to San Diego for a matchup against Washington in the Holiday Bowl, which is also on Dec. 28 and an 8 p.m. kickoff on Fox.
The outlier still holding out that NC State can play back up the bowl pecking order is Richard Johnson of SI.com. He has NC State playing Baylor in Orlando in the Cheez-It Bowl on Dec. 29 (a 5:30 p.m. kick on ESPN).
The Wolfpack, 7-3 overall and 3-3 in the ACC, plays at Louisville on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. The game was switched to RSN after originally being set for ACC Network.
