First Scouting Report: UK aims for 3rd straight bowl win vs. N.C. State in Gator Bowl
An early look ahead to Kentucky’s appearance in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl:
The opponent
Kentucky (4-6 SEC) will face North Carolina State (8-3, 7-3 ACC) at TIAA Bank Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla. The Gator Bowl will kick off at noon on Jan. 2, 2021, and be telecast by ESPN.
N.C. State ended its season with a 23-13 home victory over ACC rival Georgia Tech on Dec. 5, the Wolfpack’s fourth straight win.
In addition to the Yellow Jackets, Coach Dave Doeren’s team has victories in 2020 over Wake Forest (45-42), at then-No. 24 Pittsburgh (30-29), at Virginia (38-21), Florida State (38-22), then-No. 21 Liberty (15-14) and at Syracuse (36-29).
North Carolina State’s losses came at then-No. 20 Virginia Tech (45-24), at then-No. 14 North Carolina (48-21) and vs. then-No. 11 Miami (Fla.) 44-41.
Series history
Is tied 1-1.
Most recent meeting
Kentucky defeated North Carolina State 27-2 on Halloween, 1970, at Stoll Field in Lexington.
The other meeting between the schools came in 1909, a 15-6 victory for N.C. State.
Bowl histories
Kentucky is 10-9 all-time in bowl games and will be making a fifth straight postseason appearance for the second time in school history.
UK also went to five straight bowls from 2006-2010, the first four under Rich Brooks and the final one in Joker Phillips’ first season as Wildcats head coach.
Last season, Lynn Bowden ran for 233 yards and two touchdowns and hit Josh Ali with a 13-yard scoring pass with 15 seconds left to put UK ahead in a 37-30 come-from-behind victory over Virginia Tech in the Belk Bowl.
Mark Stoops is 2-2 in bowl games as Kentucky’s head coach and has won two straight.
North Carolina State is 17-14-1 in bowl games. The Wolfpack’s most recent postseason appearance was in the 2018 Gator Bowl, a 52-13 loss to Texas A&M.
N.C. State Coach Dave Doeren is 3-2 in bowl games with the Wolfpack, was 1-0 in the postseason at Northern Illinois and is 4-2 overall.
Know your foe
1. The North Carolina State offense has done its most lethal damage through the air in 2020. The Wolfpack is 36th in the country in passing (262.4 yards a game) and 98th in the FBS in rushing (129.1 yards a game).
2. N.C. State lost its starting quarterback, Devin Leary, to a broken fibula in the Wolfpack’s 31-20 win at Duke on Oct. 17.
Redshirt junior Bailey Hockman, a Powder Springs, Ga., product who began his career at Florida State, has assumed the starting QB role and led the Pack to a 4-2 record.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Hockman has thrown for 1,820 yards and 12 touchdowns vs. eight interceptions while completing 63.7 percent of his passes.
Hockman is the nephew of early-1990s-era UK QB Ryan Hockman.
3. At least two N.C. State coaches have Kentucky ties. Running backs coach Kurt Roper coached quarterbacks for one season (2005) on Rich Brooks’ staff at UK.
Defensive line coach Charley Wiles, the longtime former Frank Beamer assistant at Virginia Tech, played at Murray State (1983-86) and was a Division I-AA All-American for the Racers in 1986. Wiles also coached at Murray State from 1990-95.
4. Like Mark Stoops, North Carolina offensive coordinator Tim Beck, 54, is a product of Youngstown, Ohio, and a graduate of Cardinal Mooney High School. For that reason, Beck’s name was widely circulated for the recently vacant UK OC position that instead went to Los Angeles Rams assistant Liam Coen.
5. Mark Stoops lettered as an Iowa Hawkeyes defensive back in 1988. Iowa ended that season losing to North Carolina State 28-23 in the Peach Bowl.
This story was originally published December 20, 2020 at 5:32 PM with the headline "First Scouting Report: UK aims for 3rd straight bowl win vs. N.C. State in Gator Bowl."
