Tim Peeler: Looking at NC State's history playing out West

Saturday will be NC State football’s fourth visit to the state of California for a football game and the first since 2021, as it prepares to face new Atlantic Coast Conference foe California on Saturday at 3 p.m.

Hopefully, this time the game actually will be played, which was not the case three years ago when Dave Doeren and his team spent almost a week in San Diego preparing to play UCLA in the 2021 Holiday Bowl, only to have it canceled just a few hours before kickoff because of an outbreak of COVID within the Bruin football program.

The other two trips didn’t turn out so great either. The Roman Gabriel-led Wolfpack lost in consecutive seasons to UCLA at the Los Angeles Coliseum, 21-12 in 1959 and 7-0 in 1960.

Gabriel did throw his first touchdown pass of his collegiate career in the first game, but it was during one of the worst seasons in Wolfpack football history. Head coach Earle Edwards’ team beat Virginia Tech to open the season but lost the rest of its games to finish 1-9 overall.

The next season was better, with Gabriel and squad finishing with a 6-3-1 overall mark and second place in the ACC with a 4-1-1 record. The second game against UCLA was a dramatic 7-0 victory by the Bruins in a battle between two future NFL quarterbacks, Gabriel and UCLA’s Billy Kilmer.

Gabriel eventually spent more than a decade playing in the same Coliseum, as the starting quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams, while he also dabbled with roles in Hollywood movies and television shows.

He and Kilmer became lifelong friends, mainly because of their relationship with Rams and Washington Redskins head coach George Allen, who signed both of them at different times to lead his offenses during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Traveling on surplus military airplanes, the Wolfpack contingent heading west in the early days were hardly traveling in style, which is likely why transcontinental games are significantly rare in NC State football history.

They will become much more frequent for all Wolfpack teams, now that former Pacific-12 schools California and Stanford are full members of the expanded ACC.

In its history, the Wolfpack has played just five regular-season games in the 13 U.S. Census-designated Western States of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

The Pack played at Arizona State in 1960 and ’74 in Tempe, Arizona, losing the first contest 25-22 under Edwards in the first game and winning 35-14 in the second under head coach Lou Holtz.

The first game came about because Edwards had coached with Arizona State coach Frank Kush at Michigan State under head coach Biggie Munn. At the time, Edwards was taking his team all over the map, chasing appearance guarantees to help fund a new football stadium to replace aging Riddick Field and his former colleague agreed to host the Wolfpack. In a close game, State gave up a 12-0 lead thanks to 60 yards in penalties and 5 turnovers, including a fumble by Gabriel that set up the game-tying score.

The second game, featuring NC State coach Lou Holtz against Kush, was significant because it was nearly canceled because of a nationwide oil shortage that caused several ACC football teams and other NC State programs to cancel long trips at a time when gasoline was scarce.

Fans interested in seeing the game against the Sun Devlis watched it on a special broadcast beamed back to Raleigh via a cross-country television link with local television station WRAL.

Similarly, Edwards’ team trip to Wyoming to open the 1961 season was broadcast on the newly formed Wolfpack Radio Network. The game, which also pitted State’s head coach against former Michigan State colleague Bob Devaney, featured the longest punt in NC State history, an 83-yard bomb by sophomore Dave Houtz with a strong wind at his back.

The game ended in a 15-14 loss for the Pack because a bad snap on another punt was blown through the uprights for a game-deciding safety.

In addition to being invited to San Diego to play in a postseason game three years ago, the Wolfpack played in the inaugural Copper Bowl on New Year’s Eve in 1989 in Tucson, Arizona, where it faced the Arizona Wildcats on their home field.

Led by coach Dick Sheridan and quarterback Shane Montgomery, the Pack lost 17-10 in what turned out to be a defensive struggle. The Wildcats built a 17-7 lead in the first half and held on to win despite gaining just 36 yards on offense after halftime against one of the best defensive squads in NC State history.

Not many teams from the other side of the Continental Divide have found their way to Raleigh, either. The Wolfpack has hosted just two games against teams from the Old West, a 26-0 loss to Wyoming at Riddick Stadium in 1959 and a 34-14 win over New Mexico in the 2002 Black Coaches Association Bowl at Carter-Finley Stadium.

That, too, will change on Nov. 2, when Stanford pays a visit as the Wolfpack’s Homecoming opponent.

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