Jamie Barnette led NC State football to two wins over ranked Syracuse

The rare intersectional non-conference games for NC State football against Syracuse in the 1990s played a huge role in the emergence of junior All-America wide receiver Torry Holt as one of the best college football players in the country.

They were also the coming-of-age games for one of the most under-appreciated players of head coach Mike O’Cain’s tenure as Wolfpack head coach: quarterback Jamie Barnette.

The reliable and durable passer, who started more games (41) under center than any Wolfpack quarterback other than Philip Rivers (51) in his career, outplayed Syracuse Heisman hopeful Donovan McNabb in both contests, the first a daring 32-31 overtime win in the Carrier Dome in 1997 and the second a 38-17 blowout victory over the No. 11 Cuse at Carter-Finley Stadium in 1998.

Barnette was the key reason the Wolfpack was able to overcome a 14-0 first-quarter deficit in the first contest, finding Holt twice on touchdown strikes and getting the ball to senior tailback Tremayne Stephens in critical situations.

In overtime, after Syracuse had taken a 31-24 lead on their possession, Barnette accelerated his game, converting a fourth-and-7 with a 10-yard scramble to the 2-yard line against the heavily favored No. 13 Syracuse. Stephens scored the touchdown that could have tied the game with a kick conversion, but head coach Mike O’Cain rushed his offense back onto the field for a surprise 2-point attempt.

The fully confident Barnette found a streaking Holt in the corner of the end zone to score with ease, giving the Pack one of the biggest surprises of the 1997 football season.

“We had a hot quarterback and a hot receiver, and we had a lot of confidence in them,” O’Cain said. “We got them back out there quickly and said ‘Let’s see what happens.’”

Barnette and Holt continued to develop throughout that 6-5 campaign in ’97, particularly in a 48-35 loss to No. 3 Florida State in Tallahassee, Florida, in which Barnette threw five touchdown passes to Holt against the nation’s top-ranked defense.

The Wolfpack then went on to win its final three games of the season, rolling into the 1998 season with confidence under O’Cain, who was getting pressure to succeed entering his sixth year as head coach.

Barnette and Holt connected once on a 63-yard scoring pass in the 24-7 shocking upset of No. 2 Florida State early in the 1998 season. It bounced back from a disappointing loss at Baylor with a dominating performance against Syracuse in a nationally televised Thursday night game at Carter-Finley Stadium that sent fans rushing the field and tearing down the goal posts for the second home game in a row.

It’s the only time in in school history that State has beaten a Top 5 and Top 15 team in the same season, one of the biggest victories in State’s 12-2 series record against Syracuse.

“Jamie was just unbelievable in those Syracuse games,” said Holt. “Donovan and I got a lot of attention, but Jamie was just great, especially in that second game. When we won big games, you could see how good Jamie was.

“He just wanted to win every time we went on the field.”

However, Barnette was never supposed to be the Wolfpack’s quarterback. He was recruited as a Singing Day “athlete” from Roxboro, North Carolina, someone that O’Cain and his staff were expecting to move to defensive back.

Barnette wasn’t especially impressive during his redshirt fall season with the practice squad and the following spring, but he never ran better than a 4.7 40-yard dash, which made him too slow to move to cornerback.

“I told the staff, ‘He’ll probably never play quarterback for us.’” O’Cain said earlier this week with a laugh. “He was inaccurate and just not a very good quarterback. When he came back in August, though, he was a different player. It was like a light came on.

“I had to eat my words.”

Barnette played some during the first four games of his redshirt freshman season in 1996, but was hurled into the starting lineup when starter Jose Laureano was booted off the team for failure to attend class — two days before the Wolfpack hosted No. 8 Alabama at Carter-Finley.

Though the Wolfpack had not won a home game against a Division I-A opponent in nearly two years, Barnette put a scare into the Crimson Tide, hitting future NFL receiver Alvis Whitted on a 35-yard touchdown pass, finding fellow freshman Chris Coleman on a 78-yard scoring throw and completing four passes to Holt for 71 yards.

Barnette finished that first start with 14 completions on 25 attempts for 280 passing yards, and was under center for every game for the next three-and-a-half years. For three years, he threw every pass Holt, a College Football Hall of Famer, caught as a Wolfpack receiver.

Barnette ended his career as the top passer in school history, breaking the career passing records of Shane Montgomery, Terry Harvey and Erik Kramer. His totals have since been surpassed by future NFL signal callers like Rivers, Russell Wilson and Ryan Finley, but Barnette is and should be considered one of the top quarterbacks in Wolfpack history.

Barnette still ranks second in total offense (9,638 yards), third in career passing yards (9,461) and fifth in touchdown passes (59).

“Size-wise, Jamie was just not a prototypical pro quarterback, maybe 5-11,” O’Cain said. “But for us, he had a knack for making the guys around him better, and he was just so mentally tough. He took a beating for four years at quarterback and just kept coming back.

“He was an amazing young man for his size who wasn’t particularly athletic. He just did a great job of running when he needed to, staying in the pocket when he needed to and getting the ball to the right people.”

Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at [email protected].

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