NC State will be zeroed in on hanging 10 while out in San Diego.
The Wolfpack (9-3) will play UCLA (8-4) in the Holiday Bowl at 8 p.m. ET Dec. 28 in San Diego, Calif. The hanging 10 won’t be about surfing, though maybe that will occur too, but the program has been fixated over the years to reach the 10-win barrier for the second time in school history.
NC State coach Dave Doeren has won nine games three different times while in Raleigh. This is the second time he’s played a bowl game with a 10-win season on the line. A win could also help the Wolfpack improve upon their No. 18 ranking.
“I think it will be a great matchup,” Doeren said. “I look forward to getting to know them and seeing what their team is all about. I know they have done a great job this year.
“The 10th win is very meaningful to this staff, to this team and to this football family. It is a legacy thing. These seniors want to say they are one of only two teams in 130-plus years of football that were able to accomplish that.”
The 50-year-old Doeren was actually born on a Navy base in San Diego — his birthday was Friday — is looking forward to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo and whatever events that are planned. Covid took away the pre-bowl game fun a year ago, but the players will find the right balance of fun and seriousness about playing UCLA.
“Excited as a program to be headed out to San Diego,” Doeren said. “It’s a beautiful, beautiful city.
“I just met with my captains about the bowl calendar and schedule. They are excited. A lot of my guys have never been that far west.”
Doeren has never played a football game at a baseball stadium before.
“Part of bowl games is life experience,” Doeren said. “I think getting the chance to go out to a city most of our guys have never seen on Pacific Ocean. They can go to the San Diego Zoo or Sea World or see a ship. I think we’ll tour a Navy ship.”
Doeren has taken NC State seven bowl games since 2013, going 3-3 in them. Playing a Pac-12 will be a different twist, and he understands the fan attendance will be lop-sided in the Bruins’ favor.
Doeren half-joked that former San Diego Chargers fans will know about NC State. The Chargers are now in Los Angeles.
“They’ve seen Philip Rivers and he was out there a long time, so they have a little bit of an idea of what Wolfpack football is about,” Doeren said.
The 15 bowl practices are more myth than fact, but whatever amount of practices the Wolfpack get in before the game will surely help the younger players, especially the scout team performers who performed other teams’ schemes.
NC State took last week off to help get over injuries and the flu. This week will be finals week in the classroom, and the veterans will be doing more work in the weight room, than anything else in the near future. Doeren said he does expect free safety Devan Boykin healthy and H-back Christopher Toudle probably will be back for the bowl game, but “none of the other [injured] players will be back.”
“I want to see what the guys were two’s and three’s and what they can do,” Doeren said. “The [linebackers] Caden Fordham’s and Jordan Poole’s and [running back] Demie Sumo-Karngbaye and [offensive linemen] Thornton Gentry, Sean Hill and Lyndon Cooper, [defensive end] Travali [Price], [wide receiver] Julian Gray. There are so many freshman or redshirt freshman that we want to get out there and work with. [Quarterbacks] Aaron McLaughlin and Ben Finley, the list goes on and on.”
UCLA has a good tradition in college football, but it has taken coach Chip Kelly four years to build the Bruins back up, going 8-4 this season. However, numerous players went on to NFL stardom over the last 40 years, including quarterbacks Troy Aikman, Gary Beban and Billy Kilmer, offensive linemen Jonathan Ogden, Luis Sharpe and Randy Cross, linebackers Jerry Robinson, Ken Norton Jr. and Anthony Barr and safeties Kenny Easley and Carnell Lake among others. Even Jackie Robinson played safety for UCLA from 1939-40.
Doeren was a graduate assistant at USC from 1998-99 and understood the rivalry with UCLA at that time.
“I know they just put up 60 points [62-33] against their rival,” Doeren said. “When I coached at Southern Cal, I recruited that area.
“We are on FOX and it’s a nationally televised game in the evening, against a team with an incredible tradition in UCLA.”
Doeren continued to recruit Southern California at Montana and his first two years at Kansas.
“My father lives in in West LA [Los Angeles] with his wife, so I have family in California still,” Doeren said. “It’s going to be a great trip.”
The Covid pandemic has caused a number of Wolfpack players who might not be guaranteed NFL locks to return to college for a fifth year or even sixth year next year. The bowl game will be a good springboard moving forward and Doeren pointed out that everything in college football feels sped up now.
“These young men have a lot of people in their ears, a lot of people telling them what to do,” Doeren said. “They trust us and they know they will have another opportunity to be developed by great people, and that they love being around these guys and coaches. It says a lot about the culture here.”
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