A college football bowl game held in Annapolis every year ended in a brawl Saturday. At least one referee appeared to be injured.

Players from East Carolina and NC State began brawling in the final minute of East Carolina’s 26-21 victory in the Military Bowl.

Emotions were high for this matchup. NC State and East Carolina are about 80 miles apart, and although they don’t play every season, they’ve been on each other’s schedule plenty over the years.

“I’m embarrassed as a coach,” NC State’s Dave Doeren said. “I know our players are, too. That is not how people of this program, the players of this program, staff of this program, want anything to do with something like that. 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 receiver Yannick Smith appeared to swipe a towel off the waist of NC State defensive back Tamarcus Cooley, who then chased Smith toward the sideline and pushed him to the ground. Two other ECU players came to Smith’s defense. As the fight spread, it took roughly a minute to bring the situation under control — and around eight minutes before the ball could be snapped again for a final kneel-down.

At least one official appeared to have his face bloodied after the fight, and the referee seemed to be reading off a slip of paper when he announced the ejections of eight players.

“Obviously, didn’t like the last little bit of the game,” Pirates coach Blake Harrell said. “No place in sports for that.”

The two teams won’t have to wait long to face each other again. They open the season against each other Aug. 30.