Weekly NC College Football Preview (Later Bowls):
App State, Duke, ECU, Wake Forest Navigate
Player Opt-Outs, Challenging Opponents, More
(DG’s “This Week In CFB” YouTube Show = Posted Below)
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated Dec. 26, 2025)
The 2025-26 college football season continues in late December and early January with the College Football Playoff quarterfinals, plus the remainder of the sport’s 40-plus bowl games.
One of the four CFP quarterfinal matchups is an all-Southeastern Conference rematch from a wild and entertaining contest during the regular season, as #3 Georgia battles #6 Ole Miss in a prime-time showdown (Jan. 1, 8 p.m., ESPN). In mid-October, the Bulldogs needed a dramatic comeback to defeat the Rebels 43-35 in Athens.
Meanwhile, #10 Miami faces #2 Ohio State (Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m., ESPN), #4 Texas Tech meets #5 Oregon (Jan. 1, noon, ESPN), and #1 Indiana takes on #9 Alabama (Jan. 1, 4 p.m., ESPN).
Indiana, Texas Tech and Oregon all are seeking the first football national championship in school history.
In action involving teams from the Bold North State (see full previews below), 8-4 East Carolina takes on 8-4 Pitt in the Military Bowl on Saturday, 5-7 Appalachian State battles long-time archrival Georgia Southern in the Birmingham Bowl on Monday, 8-5 ACC champion Duke makes a long trek to challenge 8-4 Arizona State in the Sun Bowl on Dec. 31, and 8-4 Wake Forest serves as an in-state opponent for 5-7 Mississippi State in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte on Jan. 2.
Late Bowls Preview: Game One (Military Bowl)
East Carolina (8-4) vs. Pitt (8-4), Sat., 11 a.m. (ESPN)
In stark contrast to the upcoming College Football Playoff games, almost all of these mid-level and lower-level bowl games come with lots of complications here in the modern era.
For example, in the Military Bowl, East Carolina will be competing without its offensive coordinator, its defensive coordinator, its star quarterback, its starting running back, one of its star wide receivers and its top tight end, among others.
Pitt, meanwhile, will be playing without star running back Desmond Reid and star linebacker Kyle Louis, who both opted out to prepare for the NFL draft.
At ECU, offensive coordinator John David Baker left to take the same role at Ole Miss under new Rebels head coach Pete Golding, and defensive coordinator Josh Aldridge left to accept the same role at South Florida under new Bulls head coach Brian Hartline. Among the Pirates’ key players, quarterback Katin Houser, running back London Montgomery, wide receiver Yannick Smith and tight end Jayvontay Conner all entered the transfer portal.
Clearly, Pirates head coach Blake Harrell has his hands full here.
Regardless of those important absences, there are at least a couple of fun angles to this matchup between schools that haven’t met on the gridiron in 33 years.
First, everyone knows how much Pirate Nation loves to beat ACC opponents, at any time of year. Believe it or not, ECU’s all-time bowl record against ACC foes is 2-1, with both victories over NC State (including last year’s Military Bowl) and the lone defeat against Maryland — also in the Military Bowl — back in 2010, just a few years before the Terrapins left the ACC for the bigger money of the Big Ten.
Probably the most celebrated bowl victory in ECU history, remember, came when the Pirates beat NC State in the 1991 Peach Bowl to finish 11-1 and with a #9 national ranking, which remains the highest final ranking in program history to this day.
The other potentially intriguing angle here is the quarterback matchup.
Pitt’s starter is true freshman Mason Heintschel, a dual-threat guy who rescued the Panthers’ season when he was elevated to QB1 status back in October.
ECU (a 10-point underdog) will counter with some combination of sixth-year senior Mike Wright Jr., who’s been sort of an all-purpose utility player for the Pirates since transferring from Northwestern, and true freshman Chaston Ditta, who did play in four games during the regular season but attempted only seven passes.
Although Ditta (a January enrollee who threw for big numbers during his high school career in Texas) is considered capable of executing the Pirates’ regular offense, that potential disparity at quarterback goes a long way toward explaining why Pitt is considered a double-digit favorite in this game.
Late Bowls Preview: Game Two (Birmingham Bowl)
App State (5-7) vs. Georgia Southern (6-6), Dec. 29, 2 p.m. (ESPN)
The concept of a 5-7 team playing a 6-6 team in a bowl game drives some sports fans absolutely crazy.
“Why celebrate such mediocrity?” they’ll ask, often mockingly. “There are way too many bowl games!” they’ll shout.
Rather than jumping into either side of those debates, let’s instead tackle a more thoughtful question that very few people ever think to ask: Why are there so many bowl games?
As one of the few people on the planet who’s actually written about this exact topic for multiple decades, I actually have the answer for you. The short explanation is that there are more than 40 bowl games because that’s the profitable approach for the TV networks that televise these games, meaning primarily ESPN.
It’s not easy to get more than two million television and streaming viewers for a college sports event, and the overwhelming majority of bowl games — including the little Birmingham Bowl — typically attract more than two million viewers, whether because people are gambling on the game, looking for a distraction during the holidays, or because they just love the sport of football, which long ago became by far our country’s most popular sport.
(For a deeper dive on this topic, which includes much bigger audiences — meaning tens of millions of viewers — for the bigger bowls, check out my upcoming article here at NCSportsNetwork.com.)
Regarding this game itself, just a few quick observations.
First, App State and Georgia Southern are long-time archrivals, meaning for many decades and at multiple levels and with plenty of old-fashioned dislike along the way. Remember, each of these schools won multiple national championships while competing against each other in the FCS ranks, and now they have been FBS rivals — in the Sun Belt Conference — for more than a decade.
Both programs have fallen into the middle of the Sun Belt pack in recent years, but they had another intense, down-to-the-wire clash less than two months ago, when the Eagles beat the Mountaineers 25-23 at Kidd Brewer Stadium in Boone. The App State defense had all sorts of problems with Georgia Southern quarterback JC French IV in that one, falling behind 22-3 midway through the third quarter and ultimately giving up 352 passing yards.
One scary aspect of this rematch is that the Mountaineers (a seven-point underdog) have at least 10 of their starters in the transfer portal, including JJ Kohl and AJ Swann, who were co-starters at quarterback this season. That could leave that important role in the hands of true freshman Noah Gillon, who played in just three games and attempted 32 passes during the regular season.
Late Bowls Preview: Game Three (Sun Bowl)
Duke (8-5) vs. Arizona State (8-4), Dec. 31, 2 p.m. (CBS)
It was a tribute to Duke’s healthy football culture under second-year coach Manny Diaz that the Blue Devils, who were just 5-5 in mid-November, went on to beat UNC and Wake Forest to make the ACC championship game, then edged a 10-2 Virginia squad in overtime to take the conference crown at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte just a few weeks ago.
That marked the program’s first ACC title on the gridiron since 1989 and its first outright championship since way back in 1962.
That same healthy culture also has helped in the weeks leading up to the Sun Bowl, because whereas Arizona State has seen a slew of its key players opt out of this postseason matchup, Duke had only its three most likely 2026 NFL draft picks — offensive tackle Brian Parker II, cornerback Chandler Rivers and defensive end Vincent Anthony Jr. — do the same.
A bunch of other important Duke veterans, including star redshirt sophomore quarterback Darian Mensah and a bunch of senior starters, have opted in to this matchup in El Paso, Texas, which is about 1,600 miles from Durham.
The very lengthy “missing persons report” for Arizona State in this one includes starting quarterback Sam Leavitt (transfer portal), four of the Sun Devils’ All-Big 12 selections — running back Raleek Brown, wide receiver Jordyn Tyson, cornerback Keith Abney II and offensive lineman Max Iheanachor — plus starting left tackle Josh Atkins and starting cornerback Javan Robinson. Tyson is preparing for the NFL draft, and the rest have headed into the transfer portal.
Before all of the departures, this clash was going to be highlighted by a dynamic Duke offense going against a pretty strong Arizona State defense.
After the departures, the Blue Devils (a three-point favorite) would seem to have a significant advantage offensively, with Mensah dealing against as ASU defense that was pretty good during the regular season but is now missing its two starting cornerbacks.
Meanwhile, an up-and-down Duke defense faces a challenge led by Arizona State backup QB Jeff Sims, a former Georgia Tech player who’s now a sixth-year senior for the Sun Devils. Sims has had 32 career starts at the college level, spread among his time at Tech, Nebraska and ASU.
Sims remains a tremendous athlete and a very dangerous runner, but he’s never been a consistently effective passer, whereas Mensah — a big-time NFL prospect — has become one of the very best in all of college football in that regard.
Late Bowls Preview: Game Four (Duke’s Mayo Bowl)
Wake Forest (8-4) vs. Mississippi State (5-7), Jan. 2, 8 p.m. (ESPN)
As a starting point for this one, whereas most college football fans would agree that — generally speaking — SEC football is better than ACC football, it feels like an outright insult that, in this case, a 5-7 Mississippi State team is favored by three or four points over an 8-4 Wake Forest squad.
The only reason the Bulldogs are even in a bowl game, remember, is that a whole bunch of teams with records of 6-6 or better turned down their invitations to the postseason.
Maybe the best argument in favor of State is that the Bulldogs — while going a woeful 1-7 in the mighty SEC — went a perfect 4-0 in nonconference play during the regular season, including a quality road win at Southern Miss and a 24-20 home victory over an Arizona State team that ended up winning eight games.
Under impressive first-year head coach Jake Dickert, Wake Forest built its 8-4 record largely on the strength of its brilliant defense, which was truly outstanding in the team’s two best wins of the regular season, meaning 13-12 over SMU and 16-9 at Virginia.
That same Wake defense gave up 42 points to Florida State and 49 to Duke down the stretch, though, and it’s losing high-impact defensive tackle Mateen Ibirogba to the transfer portal, so it’s probably not safe to assume the Demon Deacons can simply win another low-scoring grinder against the Bulldogs.
Wake also had star running back Demond Claiborne opt out to prepare for the NFL draft, and two of its top wide receivers, Chris Barnes and Micah Mays, have announced their plans to enter the transfer portal. Those departures, remember, are from an extremely inconsistent offense that struggled mightily at times during the regular season.
Mississippi State’s best players, All-SEC wide receiver Brenan Thompson and All-SEC cornerback Kelley Jones, are expected to play, but the Bulldogs starting QB, Blake Shapen, has opted out to prepare for his professional career, and more than 25 other players have announced their intentions to enter the transfer portal.
Shapen’s decision means that the QB battle in this one will be Wake’s athletic but erratic sixth-year senior, Robby Ashford, against MSU’s athletic but erratic true freshman, Kamario Taylor, so nobody should expect an offensive fireworks display in the Queen City on Jan. 2.
