SAN DIEGO — And that’s that.
The clock ran out on N.C. State and the Holiday Bowl on Wednesday morning. With the Wolfpack already away from home for a week and some players flying directly home from San Diego, whatever very slim chances ever existed of conjuring a new game out of whole cloth in a matter of mere hours inevitably evaporated.
UCLA’s sudden withdrawal from the bowl game due to COVID-19 issues in the middle of N.C. State’s pregame meal left the Wolfpack wrestling with the separate but still intertwined emotions of disappointment and anger, and neither is going to fade anytime soon.
The disappointment was obvious, to get within hours of the game and a chance to earn a historic 10th win, only to have it all yanked away.
The anger was different, flaring in the initial moment, fading as players and staff worked through their emotions, rekindling overnight to overtake frustration as the dominant feeling.
N.C. State athletic director Boo Corrigan, who described his phone call with his UCLA counterpart, Martin Jarmond, as “frustrating,” said it was nevertheless impossible to argue with UCLA’s justification for pulling out at the last minute.
“I think their medical experts weighed in on what was going to happen and that was their decision,” Corrigan said Tuesday.
“Heart breaks for our guys,” Jarmond wrote in a text message.
Still, there was never any clarity from UCLA as to what the Bruins knew and when they knew it. The way it was handled — a leak to a Fox Sports reporter, a terse and heated phone conversation between athletic directors, fans and players alike suddenly milling bewildered around the lobbies of both team hotels — allowed tempers to simmer and conspiracy theories to flourish on social media.
Some N.C. State players insisted they were told UCLA’s players voted not to play, something UCLA’s players denied while sharing the same disappointment as the Wolfpack players. Unsupported accusations flew about UCLA allowing players in COVID protocols to participate in bowl-week activities. The vibe was poisonous.
Even in the real world, UCLA coach Chip Kelly’s comments about “if we have 11, we’re going to play” on Monday certainly rankled a day later, as did N.C. State’s players learning of the cancellation on Twitter before the team had even been officially told by anyone.
“I found out the same time you guys did,” N.C. State coach Dave Doeren said Tuesday. “That’s why we feel undercut a little bit there.”
Not that there weren’t enough reasons to be angry already.
“That’s miserable,” Corrigan said. “That’s an abject failure, that they had to find out on Twitter instead of us being able to tell them that. That’s part of the whole process of being angry about how everything went down.”
It wasn’t hard to triangulate the exact target of his anger. Corrigan complemented Holiday Bowl officials not only for their hospitality during the week leading up to the bowl but their efforts to find a replacement for UCLA, and continued to insist that losing this game — not on the field, but like a set of keys — took nothing away from not just this season but the past two seasons. The Big 12 officiating crew had yet to throw a flag, so that left only one alternative.
And Doeren, of course, had no such compunction.
“We felt like UCLA probably knew something was going on with their team, and didn’t tell anybody on our side,” Doeren said. “We had no clue that they were up against that. I don’t feel like it was very well handled from their university.”
Still, if we’ve learned anything in these past 21 months, it’s that this virus injects variables into our lives we never saw coming and have no way to resolve. Forget it, Jake. It’s COVID.
The Wolfpack may not have gotten the punctuation it wanted to this season, but there’s still a semicolon between here and next fall. Expectations will be high for a team that returns not only key players, but some of the best leaders of an entire generation of N.C. State players.
This disappointment, this anger, may end up being a fire that burns for 12 months. Or perhaps even more. It’s going to be hard for Doeren to play the disrespect card next season, but these emotions may fuel the Wolfpack instead — as well as the memories of standing on the field at Petco Park on Monday ahead of a game that would never be played.
“I was excited, to be honest. It was, like, beautiful, you know?” N.C. State linebacker Drake Thomas said. “You see the buildings in the background when you’re on the field. I was super excited to go out there and play. But you know, obviously not going to be able to.”
Obviously not. Despite N.C. State’s best efforts, there was nothing left to salvage. Doeren was presented with the Holiday Bowl trophy at the team hotel Wednesday morning, but it was scant consolation amid the disappointment and anger that will burn long after the football turf is peeled from the baseball field at Petco Park.
