NC State football bowl games in Charlotte memories: 2015
In 2002, Charlotte hosted for the first time a bowl game. At that point, the sponsor was Continental Tire Bowl, and Virginia defeated No. 15 West Virginia handedly, 48-22, in front of a crowd of almost 74,000 fans. NC State football would make their debut in the bowl in 2005, the first time the game was called the Meineke Car Care Bowl.
That was the first of three trips to Charlotte for NC State football.
Here is the final recap of the three bowl games in the Queen City for the Wolfpack.
Related links:
2005 Meineke Car Care Bowl vs. South Florida
NC State Football in 2015 Belk Bowl
The fact that NC State received an invite into the Belk Bowl was a bit of a mild surprise. The Wolfpack blitzed through a soft non-conference schedule, waxing Troy and Eastern Kentucky at home and Old Dominion and South Alabama on the road by an average margin of victory of 31.8 points.
Then came a tumultuous beginning to ACC play. In the middle of gameweek prep for the conference opener at home against Louisville, star running back Shadrach Thornton struck a pedestrian while riding his moped on the sidewalk. This came weeks after Thornton had returned from a two-game suspension to start the year, his third such punishment in his Wolfpack career.
He would be dismissed from the team, and the distraction showed during a 20-13 loss to the Cardinals days after. A week later, a violent thunderstorm struck Blacksburg, Va., just as NC State was set to kickoff at Virginia Tech for a Friday night game, forcing a delay in the start of what would be a 28-13 defeat.
NC State would split the final six games of conference action, alternating wins and defeats, to conclude the regular season 7-5 overall and 3-5 in the league. Yet NC State ended up in what was then called a Tier I ACC bowl game. Among the teams that went to Tier II included Pittsburgh, who was 6-2 in the conference.
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The opponent was a Mississippi State team that spent five weeks ranked in the top 25 and went 8-4 overall, including 4-4 in the SEC. All four losses were to ranked conference teams.
Both teams were led by NFL quarterback. For NC State, the Pack lined up Jacoby Brissett, while the Bulldogs had Dak Prescott.
In this game, Prescott was a star. He threw for 380 yards and four touchdown passes despite persistent rain throughout the game. Meanwhile, Brissett completed just 12 of 28 passes for 214 yards and a touchdown with 2 picks, one of which came on the game’s first play.
Ultimately, the game played out like perhaps should have been expected. Mississippi State was a borderline top-25 team, while NC State may have been playing in a bowl over more deserving ACC teams. The Bulldogs rolled to a 51-28 victory.
