NC State has struggled to win in Greenville

There’s really very little to learn when comparing historic outcomes to modern games — except in the context of rivalries. NC State football has only played four games against East Carolina at Greenville’s Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. Each of those four games featured distinctly different rosters, none carried over from the previous game, playing in front of a rabid, sold-out stadium.

It’s the emotion of the rivalry, however, that serves as the engine in this game and has since the first time the two in-state schools first met in Carter Stadium in 1970 when Earle Edwards coached the Wolfpack and Mike McGee oversaw the Pirates.

“I just know if you go to ECU to play them at their stadium, it’s a tough, tough place to play,” said Nate Irving, a former NC State All-America linebacker who grew up exactly halfway between the two schools. “Any team that goes to ECU has to be ready for everything: a good team, fired-up players and a passionate crowd.

“You have to be ready.”

When the Wolfpack first went to Greenville, the state was still recovering from Hurricane Floyd, one of the worst natural disasters to ever hit eastern North Carolina. Just weeks before the late-November game, the Dowdy-Ficklen field was underwater.

Had NC State not offered the use of Carter-Finley Stadium in September, the Pirates might not have recorded one of the biggest wins in school history, a wildly emotional victory over No. 9 Miami.

When the Wolfpack traveled down Highway 64 for “the biggest event east of I-95” in history, it wanted to win the game.

East Carolina, however, needed to win, for its fans, for its waterlogged community and to lift the program to the same level as its Big Four/ACC brethren. The Pirates finished that season 9-3, with a trip to the Mobile Alabama Bowl, while NC State finished 6-6 and was not invited to play in the postseason.

This year, the Wolfpack opens the season with the highest expectations of head coach Dave Doeren’s NC State career. That won’t matter when kickoff arrives Saturday at noon.

“When you go to their stadium, I don’t care what the expectations are or how good we think we are going to be,” said Irving, a defensive starter on the 2010 team that lost to the Pirates in overtime, 33-27. “We are going to get their best shot.

“The way they get up for an NC State game, it’s going to be tough.”

His advice to this year’s team?

“Stay focused, stay locked-in,” he said. “There will be a lot of emotions, and you have to wade through it all.”

It’s odd who became heroes in the previous four games in Greenville.

Future NFL quarterback David Garrard scored 3 touchdowns for the Pirates in 1999. Meanwhile three of the best quarterbacks in Wolfpack history (Jamie Barnette, Russell Wilson and Ryan Finley) were unable to log wins there. Daniel Evans is the only NC State quarterback to lead his team to a victory at Dowdy-Ficklen.

Preseason ACC Player of the Year Devin Leary would like to change that.

Similarly, Tom O’Brien is the only NC State head coach to win in Greenville, scoring a 34-20 victory in his first season with the Wolfpack with Evans under center. Doeren’s first trip there resulted in a 33-30 loss.

NC State Games At East Carolina

East Carolina 23, NC State 6
Nov. 20, 1999

In a season that embodied the phrase “It’s not easy being a Pirate,” head coach Steve Logan’s team endured a calamity of nature, the loss of housing and the pressure of finally getting what fans in the eastern part of the state wanted for decades: a home game against its bigger rival.

The Wolfpack, looking to become bowl eligible with a victory, thought it might have a chance when Garrard fumbled in the end zone on the Pirates’ first possession. Barnette led his team 80 yards down the field for a 6-0 lead. However, the kicking game faltered — State missed the extra point and two later field goal attempts.

Garrard gave the Pirates the lead with a 46-yard option run and added two more touchdowns later in the game in front of a record crowd of 50,092.

The win was the Pirates’ fifth in the last seven games in the series.

ECU head coach Steve Logan became the winningest coach in Pirate football history with his 51st career victory at the school, while it was the last game as a head coach for Wolfpack veteran Mike O’Cain, who was fired by Chancellor Marye Anne Fox on Thanksgiving morning.

NC State 34, East Carolina 20
Oct. 20, 2007

After losing five of its first six games under first-year head coach Tom O’Brien, the Wolfpack needed a new start and beating the Pirates on their home field was the perfect opportunity.

Evans led the way, throwing three touchdown passes, while future Super Bowl placekicker Stephen Hauschka made 2 field goals, running his streak to 8 in a row without a miss.

The Wolfpack, after suffering multiple injuries in the early part of the season and posting the nation’s worst turnover record, jumped out to a 21-0 lead in the game. East Carolina capitalized on Wolfpack mistakes to draw within one point heading into the final quarter.

That’s when Evans took control, leading his team on a pair of scoring opportunities and capping the contest with a game-sealing touchdown pass to running back Jamelle Eugene.

Evans finished the game with 335 yards on 29-of-44 passing along with his touchdown passes to John Dunlap, Darrell Davis and Eugene.

The victory began a four-game winning streak for O’Brien’s inaugural team, which finished with a 5-7 record.

East Carolina 33, NC State 27 (OT)
Oct. 16, 2010

First-year head coach Ruffin McNeill made a lot of Pirate fans happy in his first game against the Wolfpack, winning the only overtime game in the history of the rivalry.

The Pirates pulled off the upset against O’Brien’s most successful team because junior quarterback Russell Wilson had one of the worst games of his career.

After ECU built a 21-0 lead in the first quarter, the Wolfpack stormed back to take a 27-24 lead, with Wilson throwing for more than 300 yards for the 10th time in his career.

However, the scrambling passer also fumbled the ball away in the first half and threw 3 interceptions in the game, including one in overtime when the Wolfpack had a chance to win after ECU missed an extra point on its overtime possession.

The school-record crowd of 50,410 didn’t know that the Wolfpack was dealing with an unannounced flu that was running through the locker room.

“We had a stomach bug going around that week,” Irving explained, “and the afternoon heat just knocked us out. That’s not an excuse, just something that we had to deal with.”

The Wolfpack beat Florida State the next weekend, lost to Clemson the next but put itself in position to represent the Atlantic Division in the ACC Championship game with victories over North Carolina and Wake Forest.

A regular-season finale loss at Maryland ended those hopes, but a win over West Virginia in the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando gave the Pack a 9-4 final record, proving that a loss in Greenville doesn’t necessarily ruin a season.

East Carolina 33, NC State 30
Sept. 10, 2016

Former Duke star Scottie Montgomery became the second ECU first-year coach to beat NC State in Greenville, though it ended up accounting for exactly one-ninth of Montgomery’s win total in his three years as head coach of the Pirates (9-26).

A new offense led by sophomore quarterback Ryan Finley erased a 12-0 ECU lead and rolled up 497 yards against the Pirates, but the defense could not hold onto a 30-26 lead late in the fourth quarter.

ECU’s Anthony Scott scored the go-ahead touchdown with 5:49 remaining, and Finley and the offense could not answer in its final two possessions.

The final chance, which started with 51 seconds remaining and no timeouts for the Wolfpack, ended when the clock ran out following a 22-yard pass to the middle of the field from Finley to Bra’Lon Cherry.

The Pack rebounded with wins over Old Dominion, Wake Forest and Notre Dame, but the four-game losing streak that followed included losses at Clemson and Louisville and at home against Boston College and Florida State.

A win over North Carolina in Chapel Hill paved the way for an invitation to the Independence Bowl, where the Wolfpack beat Vanderbilt to finish the year 7-6 for the second year in a row.

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