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Kentucky will play NC State in the Gator Bowl

Kentucky's bowl streak under Mark Stoops will continue.

In spite of finishing with a 4-6 regular season record the Wildcats will participate in the Gator Bowl against NC State out of the ACC.

The bowl selection was announced on Sunday afternoon.

While roughly a dozen FBS programs across the country have opted out of the bowl season a couple of weeks ago Mark Stoops made it clear that his team wants to play one more game.

This will be the fifth consecutive bowl game for Kentucky. That ties a record for consecutive bowls (2006-2010).

Stoops' teams at Kentucky are 2-2 in the postseason. The 'Cats lost their first two bowl games under Stoops, 33-18 against Georgia Tech in the TaxSlayer Bowl and then 24-23 against Northwestern in the Music City Bowl. They have won their last two trips to the postseason, 27-24 over Penn State in the Citrus Bowl and last year 37-30 against Virginia Tech on Lynn Bowden's late touchdown pass to Josh Ali.

This is Kentucky's second appearance in the Gator Bowl, the first being that meeting against Georgia Tech.

NC State is ranked No. 23 in the nation and finished the 2020 regular season with an 8-3 record, including 7-3 in ACC play.

The last time these teams played was in 1970.

So far cornerback Kelvin Joseph is the only player who has opted out of the rest of the season. He also missed the South Carolina game.

As a program Kentucky has an all-time 10-9 record in bowl games. Nine of those 19 bowls have come in the last 15 seasons.

The Gator Bowl takes place in Jacksonville, Fla., at 11:00 a.m. on January 2.

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