Coastal Carolina didn’t want to play a 12th game, after all.
In the strangest of years when perennial non-contenders have a chance to rise up and win convoluted championships, Coastal Carolina said no thanks. The Chanticleers, which is a rooster or a male chicken, had a chance to win its second road game against a Power 5 school (if you call Kansas that in football), but Coastal chose not to fill its open date when UNC called.
It wasn’t even close, according to sources inside Carolina athletics. The chickens wanted more money than they probably knew Carolina could pay (reportedly around $500,000). Hey, cock-a-doodle-do: There is no money when there are no fans in the stands.
Coastal had opened the season by winning at Kansas for the second straight year, whipping Les Miles’ Jayhawks by two touchdowns in Lawrence (it was 12-7 in 2019) and then romping over Campbell 43-21 in the roosters’ home opener. They play in the Sun Belt Conference of the Football Bowl Subdivision.
When Charlotte came down with COVID and bailed, UNC called Coastal and basically got turned down without even a negotiation. The only money Carolina could offer was some of the third-tier ACCN dough from the game with the 49ers.
No one knows exactly how much the TV payout will be since we don’t know how many games will be played and televised, so Coastal wanted guaranteed money from a school that has already lost a couple of hundred million from the pandemic. But it was a no-brainer, easy bus ride, chance to be on national TV and spring an upset.
What happened to love of the game and trying to shock the world? With a win in Chapel Hill, the Chanticleers would have received some votes for the Top 25, which to my knowledge they have never been in. They really had no interest, according to the sources.
Instead, they took the week off to prepare for former Tar Heels assistant Blake Anderson’s Arkansas State, which has already beaten Kansas State on the road. So the roosters probably didn’t want to lose two in a row to bum out their 2-0 start.
Point is, nothing is off the table in this COVID world. But Coastal missed a chance to say it played at Carolina and maybe even won. Might have been good for recruiting, too.
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