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Official bloodied, 8 players ejected following NC State vs ECU melee at Go Bowling Military Bowl

Chandler Vesselsby:Chandler Vessels•about 23 hours•

ChandlerVessels

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Things took a turn for the worse near the end of Saturday’s Go Bowling Military Bowl between NC State and ECU. A brawl broke out in the final minute of a 26-21 victory for the Pirates, leaving one referee bloody after taking a helmet to his face.

Chaos took over as the benches emptied and several players from both teams got involved in the fight. The official suffered the injury when an ECU player pushed an NC State player in the back, causing him to fall forward into the referee and headbutt him with his helmet.

Eight players were ejected as a result of the fracas, five from the Wolfpack and three from the Pirates. It took a while to get everything sorted out before the final 38 seconds ticked off the clock and ended the game.

The fight started when ECU receiver Yannick Smith appeared to grab the towel of NC State defensive Back Tamarcus Cooley. Cooley then chased after Smith and grabbed him before other players got involved.

The brawl was an unfortunate end to what was otherwise an entertaining game between the two in-state rivals. ECU was trailing with less than two minutes to go before Rahjai Harris broke free on an 86-yard touchdown run to give them the lead.

NC State coach Dave Doeren issued an apology in his postgame press conference for the behavior of several of his players who were involved in the fight.

“I would like to apologize for our football team for how that ended,” he said. “I’m embarrassed as a coach and I know our players are, too. That is not how people in this program, players in this program, staff in 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.”

With the loss, NC State ends its season at 6-7 while ECU ends at 8-5. This marked the 33rd overall meeting between the rivals, and the Wolfpack hold a 19-14 advantage in the series after Saturday’s result.

Given the way this one ended, tensions are sure to be high when the two teams open the 2025 season against each other.