NC State football's prior biggest games

Saturday’s game between No. 10 NC State and No. 5 Clemson in possibly miserable conditions might well be the biggest game in the history of the Wolfpack’s program — but there have been a few other candidates.

Certainly with ESPN’s GameDay on hand and a primetime television slot on ABC for the 7:30 p.m. contest, it’s a nationally important game for control of the Atlantic Coast Conference’s final Atlantic Division race.

Subscribe to The Wolfpacker today for a limited-time $1 deal for a year of premium access

It’s the first time NC State has been ranked in the Top 10 in 20 years, and it’s the first time in program history that both the Wolfpack and its opponent are ranked in the Top 10, a circumstance that has only happened in a regular-season ACC game 16 times in the history of the league.

There are, however, three other NC State games where the combined rankings of the 2 teams involved are similar to this one, and the Wolfpack had its chances in each matchup.

While each of the three below were important contests between highly ranked opponents, the most important game in the history of Wolfpack football was when head coach Earle Edwards and his 1967 NC State team, ranked No. 3 in the nation and famous for the white shoes defense, traveled to face Joe Paterno’s Penn State at Beaver Stadium in University Park, Pennsylvania.

The two teams ahead of the Pack had lost and tied earlier in the day, so the No. 1 ranking in the nation was on the line for Edwards and his team.

Penn State scored twice in the game’s first 7 minutes, on the offense’s first possession and on a 67-yard interception return. State scored on a pair of Gerald Warren field goals in the first half.

Trailing 13-6 late in the game but inside the 1-yard line, NC State running back Tony Barchuk was stopped on fourth down with 4 minutes to play. Penn State gave up a safety afterwards for the 13-8 final tally.

The missed opportunity in the biggest game in school history still brings tears to then-NC State linebacker Chuck Amato’s eyes.

“The only thing I can compare it to is a death in the family,” he said before the 50th anniversary celebration of that record-breaking year. “It’s the only thing that comes close.”

The following week, the Wolfpack went to Clemson, still with the opportunity to win the ACC title and earn an invitation to the Orange Bowl.

The Tigers came out for the game mockingly wearing orange shoes against a deflated Wolfpack and took advantage of a stiff wind for a 14-6 victory that was sealed by a fourth-quarter interception.

Still, the Pack finished the year with its first-ever postseason victory, 14-7 over Georgia in the Liberty Bowl, to record the first nine-win total in school history.

Where this weekend’s game fits in the context of “most important game in school history” won’t be known until much deeper into season.

#11 NC State 14, #4 Duke 14
Oct. 26, 1957
Combined rankings: 15

NC State had only won 2 ACC games in the league’s first four seasons, and there was no reason to think its fortunes would be different in 1957, mainly because head coach Earle Edwards and his team had just a brutal schedule.

At Edwards’ choosing and with some pressure from the UNC Consolidated System, the Pack played most of its games — even the ones against archrival North Carolina — away from Riddick Stadium.

The 1957 season began with 5 consecutive road games: at Chapel Hill, Maryland, Clemson, Florida State and Miami.

Imagine everyone’s surprise, then, when the Wolfpack won the first four of those by a combined score of 75-20 and dueled the Hurricanes to a scoreless tie on a Friday night in Miami, thanks in great part to a goal-line stand with less than a minute to play.

NC State, picked to finish last in the ACC, entered the Top 20 rankings after beating the Terps and kept rising even after the tie against the Hurricanes.

Duke was still the ACC’s power team at the time, and was ranked No. 4 in the nation when it traveled to Raleigh on Oct. 26, 1957, to play in the Wolfpack’s first home game of the season. Imagine, a home opener the week of Halloween.

All 21,000 seats were occupied in the first sell-out since 1946, hoping to see the Pack beat the Blue Devils for the first time since that same season.

Duke scored two quick touchdowns in the first half to take a 14-0 lead and put Edwards’ team behind for the first time all year.

Then, late in the second quarter, NC State’s only home field advantage kicked in when a 93-car train rumbled just beyond the south end zone on the tracks that bisects NC State’s main campus. During the distraction, quarterback Tom Katich threw a 52-yard touchdown pass to future All-American Dick Christy to close the gap before halftime.

Later in the game, a 48-car train passed through, while State’s Jim Oddo was intercepting a pass and running it to the red zone. The Wolfpack scored again when Christy hauled in a 5-yard pass from halfback Dick Hunter. Importantly, Hunter kicked both extra points.

Duke had a chance to win the game late in the fourth quarter, as its second unit drove all the way to the NC State 1-yard line. On fourth down, Duke’s offense was called for illegal procedure, moving the ball back to the 6.

Blue Devils coach Bill Murray ran his first string back onto the field in an effort to score, but Duke starting quarterback Bob Brodhead was sacked by State defensive linemen Darrell Dess and Jim Crain to preserve the tie.

Afterwards, Edwards’ team moved into the top 10 for the first time in school history and went on to win its first Atlantic Coast Conference title after beating South Carolina in the season-finale.

#2 Nebraska 31, #14 NC State 14
Sept. 22, 1973
Combined rankings: 16

Players on Lou Holtz’s second team at NC State were a little full of themselves as they prepared to travel to Lincoln, Nebraska, to play only the second scheduled game in history between the Wolfpack and Cornhuskers.

“We are going out to win,” said junior running back Stan Fritts. “We’re definitely going to beat them. We will definitely win if there are not a lot of turnovers.”

For 3 quarters, Fritts did everything he could to make his prediction come true in the state where he lived as a youth. He scored touchdown on runs of 59 and 16 yards against Nebraska’s famed Blackshirts defense, quieting the crowd of 76,000 fans.

The unheralded Pack, however, crumbled in the final stanza, allowing three unanswered touchdowns on 2 bad punts and an interception.

All three of the Nebraska drives started in Wolfpack territory, and the Huskers asserted their dominance over the visitors from the East. Nebraska outgained the Pack 480-193 in total offense and 28-10 in first downs.

Wolfpack starting quarterback Bruce Shaw did not complete a pass. Sophomore Dave Buckey completed just three for 16 yards.

“Maybe we played a little too cautious,” Holtz said after the game. “If anyone is at fault, it’s me. I made some poor play decisions.”

It was an opportunity lost, for sure.

“We believed we could win,” Holtz said. “We certainly had ‘em …”

The next week, while evangelist Billy Graham held eight consecutive nights of his crusade at Carter Stadium, the Wolfpack traveled to face unranked Georgia, where it lost 31-12.

You know what happened after that, though? A Wolfpack revival — the Pack won 7 of its final 8 games, including a victory over Kansas in the Liberty Bowl, and claimed the only ACC title in Holtz’s four-year tenure as head coach.

The streak began with a 28-26 win over North Carolina, thanks to a fourth-and-goal touchdown from the 1 by eventual ACC Player of the Year, Willie Burden.

That academic year, NC State also won the men’s basketball, swimming and baseball titles, a feat that has never been matched.

#3 Florida State 34, #16 NC State 13
Sept. 19, 1992
Combined rankings: 19

The Wolfpack, unranked in the preseason, had opened with an upset of Iowa in the Kickoff Classic in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and added solid wins over Appalachian State (35-10) and Maryland (14-10) to enter its fourth game ranked No. 16 in the Associated Press Top 25.

Facing the No. 3 Seminoles for the first time as an ACC opponent, NC State head coach Dick Sheridan and his squad were hoping to get a leg up on the conference race with its second league win of the season.

“We’ll be facing what could be the best collection of talent in college football,” Sheridan said. “We’ll be measuring ourselves against one of the most successful programs over the last decade. Still, anything you say about their football team doesn’t seem quite enough to express how impressed we are with their performance thus far.”

The Seminoles had already posted wins over Duke (48-21) and at Clemson (24-20) to take the lead in the conference standings, but head coach Bobby Bowden wasn’t quite sure where his team stood as a conference and national power.

After a scoreless first quarter in which the Wolfpack defense forced an interception and a fumble, State finally opened the scoring with a 24-yard chip-shot field goal by placekicker Steve Videtich, giving the then-capacity crowd of 53,900 hope that something big was about to happen at Carter-Finley Stadium.

Florida State’s new quarterback, junior Charlie Ward, struggled mightily to that point, missing his first five passes and losing 29 yards on three rushes.

The rowdy crowd had hope.

With the flick of the wrist, however, Ward shook off his early-season mistakes — he had thrown 8 interceptions in FSU’s first 2 games and another in this one — and connected on scoring passes of 60, 32 and 44 yards, wiping away the Pack’s momentum.

State added another Videtich field goal in the third quarter and a late 39-yard touchdown pass from Geoff Bender to Reggie Lawrence, but Ward was the dominating factor in the game. The next year, the two-sport standout (he also played basketball for the Seminoles) won the Heisman Trophy.

The loss had no lingering effects on Sheridan’s Wolfpack, which went on to beat North Carolina, Clemson, Duke and Wake Forest for a 9-2-1 overall mark, matching the 1974 and ’91 teams’ record for the most regular-season victories in school history to that point.

Unbeknownst to anyone, Sheridan’s final game with the Pack was a fog-shrouded 27-10 loss to Florida in the 1992 Gator Bowl. The coach stepped down for health reasons just weeks before the start of 1993 preseason camp.

Prior Top 10 ACC Showdowns Before NC State At Clemson

Date	Game	Combined Rank
Nov. 17, 1981	No. 2 Clemson 10, No. 8 North Carolina 8	10
Nov. 8, 1997	No. 3 Florida State 20, No. 5 North Carolina 3	8
Sept. 11, 1999	No. 1 Florida State 41, No. 10 Georgia Tech 35	11
Nov. 4, 2000	No. 4 Florida State 54, No. 10 Clemson 7	14
Sept. 10, 2004	No. 5 Miami 15, No. 4 Florida State 10	9
Nov. 6, 2004	No. 5 Florida State 36, No. 6 Virginia 3	8
Nov. 5, 2005	No. 5 Miami 27, No. 3 Virginia Tech 7	8
Oct. 25, 2007	No. 2 Boston College 14, No. 8 Virginia Tech 10	10
Sept. 22, 2012	No. 4 Florida State 49, No. 10 Clemson 37	14
Oct. 19, 2013	No. 1 Florida State 51, No. 3 Clemson 14	14
Nov. 2, 2013	No. 1 Florida State 51, No. 7 Miami 14	8
Dec. 5, 2015	No. 1 Clemson 37, No. 8 North Carolina 17	9
Sept. 17, 2016	No. 10 Louisville 63, No. 2 Florida State 20	12
Oct. 1, 2016	No. 5 Clemson 42, No. 3 Louisville 36	8
Dec. 2, 2017	No. 1 Clemson 38, No. 7 Miami 3	8
Oct. 10, 2020	No. 1 Clemson 42, No. 7 Miami 17	8
Nov. 7, 2020	No. 4 Notre Dame 47, No. 1 Clemson 40	5
Dec. 12, 2020	No. 4 Clemson 34, No. 2 Notre Dame 10	6