The day began like any other in December for a college football program shut out of bowl season.
Rutgers coach Greg Schiano sat in his home office, fully immersed in recruiting. Scarlet Knights quarterback Noah Vedral relaxed at home in Nebraska. Vedral and his teammates had scattered after exams, traveling to places as far from campus as Sweden (offensive lineman Sam Vretman and defensive lineman Robin Jutwreten) and Australia (punter Adam Korsak). They didn’t expect to return until mid-January.
“I just kind of put the season to bed,” Schiano told ESPN.
Then, around midday on Dec. 22, ESPN and others reported that Texas A&M would withdraw from the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl because of COVID-19 cases and other issues impacting its roster. Wake Forest suddenly didn’t have an opponent in the sixth-oldest bowl, played every year since 1946 in Jacksonville, Florida.
Schiano heard about Texas A&M’s situation and jokingly texted Kevin MacConnell, his chief of staff, asking, “Do you want to go bowling?” MacConnell and Schiano both had scheduled separate family trips to Florida around the holidays.
“We’re both planning on being there anyway. Why not now?” MacConnell texted back, adding, “But I’m thinking they’re going to shut the game down and they’re not going to be able to get somebody.”
The lighthearted exchange continued until MacConnell received a message from A.J. Edds, the Big Ten’s associate director for sports administration and the league’s bowl liaison.
“I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this could happen,'” MacConnell said.
By that night, it became clear that Rutgers, despite a 5-7 record, would have the chance to go bowling for the first time since the 2014 season. The official invitation came the following day, and the Rutgers staff and players, who had scrambled back to campus, on Tuesday boarded a quickly arranged charter flight to Jacksonville, where Friday it will play in the most prestigious bowl game in team history (11 a.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App).
“I just remember being…
Source : espn
