Rutgers beats North Carolina in inaugural, sparse Quick Lane Bowl
DETROIT -- The Lions have stressed for months that the Quick Lane Bowl doesn't share a history or anything else with the game it replaced at Ford Field.
Friday showed exactly why.
The inaugural game, with what was supposed to be a much more attractive matchup pitting a Big Ten team against one from the ACC, drew a paid crowd of only 23,876 -- smaller than all but one Motor City Bowl/Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl. The actual attendance appeared closer to 10,000.
Tom Lewand, president of both the Lions and the bowl game, said that the franchise knew it was going to be a challenging first season.
"When you partner with the Big Ten and the ACC, you know you are getting some geographic diversity," Lewand said. "You know that there are also going to be some travel challenges for the supporters of both schools when it comes to the holidays, so we feel like selling more than 23,000 seats is a very solid number going forward."
While the previous bowl, started in 1997 at the Silverdome by George Perles, usually matched a Mid-American Conference team against another mid-major opponent, it had the advantage of having at least one school within easy driving distance.
The Lions, on the other hand, got the bad luck of getting Rutgers as their first Big Ten representative, meaning both fanbases would have to come from the East Coast for a game on the day after Christmas.
"We're going to sit down with all our partners -- ESPN and both conferences -- and look at what might be the right date for next year," Lewand said. "Next year, with Christmas on a Friday, there will be a lot of activity on that Saturday, and the NFL on Sunday, so we're going to take a step back and look at all of that."
As it turned out, the Lions didn't get much of a game in their first run at hosting a bowl, either. North Carolina trailed by 33 points midway through the fourth quarter before a pair of meaningless touchdowns made the final score 40-21.
"The game of football is pretty simple," Tar Heels coach Larry Fedora said. "If you give away the ball on offense, don't force any turnovers on defense and make multiple game-changing mistakes on special teams, you aren't going to win football games."
The fans did get to see a breakout performance by a pair of freshmen running backs who should make some noise next season in the Big Ten. Game MVP Josh Hicks ran for 202 yards and a touchdown, while Robert Martin added 100 yards and two scores -- the first time Rutgers had two running backs reach triple figures in eight years.
"This is a childhood dream come true," Hicks said. "It is just now hitting me what happened out there. Our O-line was just so good today -- they were opening lanes, and all I had to do was hit them. You could tell it wasn't because of me, because Robert was getting the same kind of holes that I was."
It was an emotional victory for Rutgers coach Kyle Flood, who wore an NYPD baseball cap during the game to honor the memories of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, the two officers killed by Ismaaiyl Brinsley last weekend. Flood's brother Jerry is a sergeant in the NYPD Emergency Service Unit, and he also has a grandfather, an uncle and three cousins that have been with the department.
There were also a large number of NYPD caps on the Rutgers sidelines and in the Scarlet Knights' supporters section.
"We're here celebrating a bowl victory, and my brother is getting ready to go to two funerals in the next couple days," Flood said. "Celebrating with my team is very special, and it means a lot to me that our seniors will leave this program with championship rings, because that was one thing they hadn't accomplished.
"But I also wanted to show my support for my brother and the NYPD at a very tough time, because that is a relationship that is very special for our program."
