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ANNAPOLIS, Md. — If you’re already looking ahead to 2025 in college football, mark this season opener down: East Carolina at NC State on Aug. 30.
The Pirates and Wolfpack began brawling in the final minute of East Carolina’s 26-21 victory in the Military Bowl on Saturday night — and the teams won’t have to wait long to see each other again. They face off to open next season.
“I’m embarrassed as a coach,” NC State coach Dave Doeren said. “I know our players are, too. That is not how people of this program, the players of this program, staff of this program, want anything to do with something like that. To me, it was a terrible response to something that happened to one of our players, and there’s no excuses for it. So I apologize to ECU and their team for the way we responded.”
Emotions were understandably high for this matchup. NC State and East Carolina are about 80 miles apart, and although they don’t play every season, they’ve been on each other’s schedule plenty over the years.
NC State rallied from a 20-7 deficit in the fourth quarter and led by a point when ECU’s Rahjai Harris capped a spectacular day with an 86-yard touchdown run that gave the Pirates a 26-21 lead with 1:33 to play.
An interception gave East Carolina the ball back with 44 seconds left, needing only to run out the clock, but after a run up the middle by Harris, the fight broke out around the hash marks closer to the ECU sideline.
“Obviously, didn’t like the last little bit of the game,” Pirates coach Blake Harrell said. “No place in sports for that.”
East Carolina receiver Yannick Smith appeared to swipe a towel off the waist of NC State defensive back Tamarcus Cooley, who then chased Smith toward the sideline and pushed him to the ground. Two other ECU players came to Smith’s defense. As the fight spread,…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/brawl-mars-end-miltary-bowl-054943721.html
Author : NBC Sports
Publish date : 2024-12-29 05:49:00
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