NC State football countdown to 2023 kickoff: 83
The NC State football season opener for 2023 is at Connecticut on Aug. 31 — or 83 days away. TheWolfpacker.com’s countdown for the season looks at the significance of the number 83 in Pack history.
NC State Football And No. 83
• Wearing No. 83 for NC State football is yet another wide receiver who is hoping to have a breakout season in what should be an important campaign for him — fourth-year redshirt sophomore Joshua Crabtree.
Thus far, Crabtree has been limited to snaps on offense in lopsided wins over the past two years and has yet to make a reception. But he did receive extensive special teams snaps (175) in 2022, and in December he was awarded NC State’s Co-Offensive Scout Team Player of the Year.
The 6-foot-3, 205-pounder was a player that the Wolfpack evaluated extensively during the 2020 recruiting cycle, having him in camps twice and going to one of his games in the fall before offering. He tested out as a good athlete, and as a senior at Heritage High in Wake Forest, N.C., Crabtree caught 47 passes for 711 yards and eight touchdowns.
• The 1983 season was the first of former NC State football head coach Tom Reed’s brief three-year and largely unsuccessful (on the field) tenure in Raleigh. The Wolfpack went 3-8 in that campaign, including 1-5 in the ACC. NC State lost 6 of 7 games to end the year, the lone victory in that stretch a home win over Appalachian State.
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That would be the first of three consecutive 3-8 seasons for Reed before stepping down under pressure following the 1985 campaign and replaced by College Football Hall of Famer Dick Sheridan. Reed is the last head coach with NC State to have an overall losing record while in Raleigh. All five Pack coaches since then enjoyed above .500-tenures.
Reed, nicknamed “The General” for his intensity, did succeed however in improving the NC State football team’s academic standing, which was one of the reasons why Reed was selected to replace Monte Kiffin.
Reed was hired after five seasons at his alma mater Miami of Ohio, during which he went 31-19-2 overall and 23-13-1 in the Mid-American Conference. He returned to coaching in 1987 to start a five-year stint as an assistant at Michigan, helping the Wolverines reach a pair of Rose Bowls.
After his coaching career, Reed returned to the Raleigh area and started a consultant business. He passed away at the age of 77 this past September in Zebulon.
