Wake Forest has accepted an invitation to play Navy in the inaugural EagleBank Bowl on Dec. 20 at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.
It will be the second meeting of the schools this season. Navy defeated the Deacons 24-17 on Sept. 27 in Winston-Salem.
The bowl will kick off at 11 a.m. and will be televised by ESPN. It will be the first of the 34 bowl games this season.
Louisville's loss on Thursday night all but guaranteed N.C. State an at-large bowl bid. The question remains where will the Wolfpack go bowling?
The definitive answer won't be decided until Sunday.
Rutgers eliminated Louisville from the at-large bowl pool with the 63-14 win, leaving the Wolfpack and Notre Dame as the only unaffiliated BCS teams with a 6-6 record.
Dick Vitale said it best Wednesday night while watching North Carolina wallop Michigan State 98-65 in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.
Vitale said he was looking forward to the North Carolina-Michigan State and Duke-Purdue games because they were matching premier teams, but neither game lived up to its billling in the sense of being competitive.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — James Johnson scored 15 of his 21 points in the first half, and No. 15 Wake Forest routed Indiana 83-58 on Wednesday night.
L.D. Williams added 16 points for the Demon Deacons (7-0), who continued their best start since 2003, when they opened with 11 straight wins in Chris Paul's freshman year.
Indiana native Jeff Teague scored all 14 of his points after halftime and freshman Al-Farouq Aminu finished with 12 for Wake Forest, which shot 61.5 percent in pushing its record in the made-for-TV ACC/Big Ten Challenge to 5-0 at home and 8-1 overall.
Wake Forest says forward Jamie Skeen has decided not to return to the university for the spring semester.
Skeen was declared ineligible for the fall semester because he violated the school's academic policy. To be readmitted by Wake for the spring semester, Skeen needed to file an appeal. He opted not to file that appeal, the university says.
From Talking Points:
A special mid-week edition of the bowl predictions, with new rumor and speculation bringing the ACC picture into focus.
Specifically, the Gator Bowl is making a play for Clemson, which would bump North Carolina to the Meineke Bowl in Charlotte, where the Heels would play Pittsburgh. The ACC title game loser is likely headed to Nashville, whether it's Virginia Tech or Boston College.
Read more here.
The NCAA says the ACC can't send N.C. State to the EagleBank Bowl in Washington.
Maryland says it won't play in the EagleBank Bowl because of an academic conflict.
Now, Navy says it won't play Wake Forest in the EagleBank Bowl because it has a no rematch clause, Patrick Stevens of the Washington Times reports.
That leaves? Miami.
Wake Forest was always been a basketball school, until Jim Grobe came along. Well, the Deacs' November stumbles on the football field can be forgiven because the Dash is back in basketball mode.
The Deacs beat two good teams to win the 76 Classic at in Anaheim — UTEP and Baylor. Both will look good on the NCAA resume come March.
• NCAA monkey wrench in Pack's bowl plans
N.C. State fans have a new favorite team — Troy — at least for one week.
The Trojans (7-4) could be the key to State finding a bowl home. An NCAA rule (page 9), could keep State out of the ACC bowl lineup. That puts the Wolfpack (6-6) in the at-large pool.
Under NCAA rules, a 6-6 team cannot fill an at-large bowl bid before a 7-5 (or better) team.
From Talking Points:
What a crazy weekend in the ACC. Good thing that Tulsa and Rice won, restoring normalcy to Conference USA.
While we await word whether the ACC is going to agree with the Big East's interpretation of NCAA rules that no 6-6 team can go to a conference-tie-in bowl ahead of a 7-5 team — which would be bad news for N.C. State — a few hazy pieces of the bowl picture made themselves clear Saturday.
Read more here.
