East Carolina-NC State fight mars end of Military Bowl, ref left bloodied

East Carolina wide receiver Yannick Smith appeared to swipe a towel from N.C. State defensive back Tamarcus Cooley. The Wolfpack played and then chased Smith and pushed him to the ground. Two other East Carolina players jumped into the fray to defend Smith.

It was another eight minutes before everyone could calm down, and the final play could occur.

At least one official was seen with his face bloodied. Eight players were ejected from the game.

"To me, it was a terrible response to something that happened to one of our players, and there's no excuses for it. So I apologize to ECU and their team for the way we responded."

East Carolina head coach Blake Harrell said there was "no place in sports for that."

He seemed to challenge other in-state schools to add them to their schedules. East Carolina and N.C. State are only about 80 miles apart and have each other on their schedules for next season.

"I don't think you can look at our fans and tell them it's not a rivalry. It's an hour and 15 minutes up the road," Harrell said. "And there's a couple of other schools about the same distance. Maybe they should put us on their schedule as well, instead of trying to take our players. They want to call our players and take our players. Well, how about put us on the schedule?

"We're going to be looked at like a little step-brother, that's fine. These guys are going to compete, they're going to take up the challenge. I know we got to go play these guys again next year, at the beginning of the year. But we're going to celebrate this one tonight."

East Carolina finished the season 8-5 and N.C. State ended the year 6-7.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.