WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — With the bowl season set across the college football landscape, a North Carolina in-state rivalry will make its way to Annapolis, Maryland on Saturday, December 28th as North Carolina State will meet up with East Carolina in the 2024 Go Bowl Military Bowl.
For the Pirates of East Carolina, this is the third time they have been selected to play it the Military Bowl. Most recently, the Pirates were selected in 2021, however the game was canceled due to Covid-19. There are roughly a dozen current players who were supposed to play in the game, and they are excited to finally get their chance to play in the game. “The guys are fired up for to play in another ball game and be up there in DC”, head coach Blake Harrell said.
“Obviously, it was great experience last time. Just didn’t a chance to play in the bowl game.
So, this time, you know, the opportunity to play the bowl game is, is all that, you know, they dreamed about and worked for the last month and a half or so”, Harrell said.
NC State is coming off of a nail-biting win versus North Carolina to get them to six victories on the year, and a Military Bowl appearance. Now the Wolfpack are getting ready for another in-state opponent as head coach Dave Doeren explains, while East Carolina and NC State do not play as often as they used to, bragging rights will still be on the line for the players of both teams. “We’re in state opponents and there’s a lot of crossover between our fans”, Doeren says.
“Their split households and all those kinds of things. There are Wolfpack families whose kids are students at ECU and you know. So, there’s all that in-state stuff that goes with this game. And we’re not far from each other. We run into each other. Coaches see each other on the road recruiting, at clinics, everything else. And a lot of these players, probably at least the in-state guys, you know, will have teammates from high school on these two teams”, Doeren says.
The Military Bowl game between East Carolina and NC State will kick off Saturday, December 28th at 5:45pm. DC News Now is the official media partner of the Military Bowl.
