NC State looks to extend recent success vs. once-dominant Florida State

For 30 consecutive years, NC State and Florida State have met as Atlantic Coast Conference football rivals, beginning with the 1992 game in Raleigh during the Seminoles first season and continuing Saturday when the two teams play at 8:00 p.m. at Carter-Finley Stadium.

Both teams were ranked in the Top 20 in that inaugural contest, and the No. 16 Wolfpack held the No. 3 Seminoles at bay for the first quarter. It didn’t last long, but it did kick off what has become NC State’s biggest out-of-state rivalry other than the annual Textile Bowl game against Clemson.

The series has been lively, with the Wolfpack winning four of the last five meetings, including last year’s rather routine 28-14 victory at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, which State led from start to finish thanks to 4 touchdown passes by quarterback Devin Leary to four different receivers.

The Wolfpack has never trailed in the four most recent victories, a statistic that is hard to comprehend for those who remember Florida State’s absolute dominance in its first two decades as an ACC member.

Leary’s performance last year was one of the most impressive ever in a series that for three decades has produced new standouts on a near annual basis.

Without question, the greatest single individual performances against the Seminoles came exactly 25 years ago this year in Tallahassee, by the offensive tandem of quarterback Jamie Barnette and wide receiver Torry Holt.

Sure, they are better remembered for what they did the next year, when the Wolfpack became the second ACC team to ever beat the Seminoles, thanks to a career-defining performance by Holt, the College Football Hall of Fame inductee and former NFL superstar. Holt scored on a 68-yard punt return and a 63-yard touchdown pass in the 24-7 win over Bobby Bowden’s No. 2 Seminoles, matching the highest ranked opponent the Wolfpack has ever beaten.

The win was set up, however, by the game the year before at Doak Campbell, when Holt caught 5 touchdown passes against the nation’s top defense, which had given up one scoring pass in the team’s first three home games. It didn’t much affect the outcome of the game, because FSU scored four unanswered touchdowns to take a 27-0 lead and won the game 48-35, but it sure put a dent in the Seminole defense’s pride.

“We got run over and run by,” Florida State defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews said.

That effort bolstered the Pack’s confidence for the 1998 game at Carter-Finley, despite Florida State coning in as a 25-point favorite with six consecutive wins in the series.

On the first play of the game, future Heisman Trophy winner Chris Weinke threw a touchdown pass to give his team a 7-0 lead. That was Weinke’s last positive play against a Wolfpack defense that intercepted him six times that afternoon. It then let Holt do his damage.

“Nobody gave us a dog’s chance of coming in here and winning this football game — not a prayer,” said NC State head coach Mike O’Cain.

There was pretty good reason for that. In O’Cain’s first two trips to Tallahassee, the Wolfpack lost by a combined 119 points, 77-17 in 1993 and 62-3 in 1995. If possible, the games weren’t that close.

Longtime Bowden assistant and former Wolfpack linebacker, graduate assistant and assistant coach Chuck Amato lost in a similar fashion in his first game at NC State against his mentor and former employer, 58-14, in 2000 of front of the Pack’s home crowd.

“They yanked down our pants in front of 52,000 people and spanked our fannies,” Amato famously said.

Of course, that was just two years after Bowden and his team were embarrassed by Holt, and they weren’t about to let them get another win at Carter-Finley.

In 2001, the Wolfpack relied on new heroes to beat the Seminoles, sophomore quarterback Philip Rivers and senior running back Ray Robinson. The Pack offense amassed a season-high 463 yards in total offense. Amato inspired his team with a pregame showing of basketball coach Jim Valvano’s “Never Give Up” speech. Burt Reynolds was on hand to see Amato’s first return trip to Tallahassee.

The Wolfpack defense stopped Florida State from crossing into the end zone on four consecutive plays at the end of the game, ending with NC State cornerback Brian Williams knocking down Florida State quarterback Chris Rix’s final pass.

The return was triumphant for Amato, who handed Bowden his first-ever loss in a Homecoming Game.

The next year, the Wolfpack broke a three-game losing streak by beating the Seminoles 17-7 at Carter-Finley to win its school-record 10th game of the regular season, and nearly had a three-game winning streak against Florida State before losing 50-44 in Tallahassee in 2003 in Rivers’ final season at NC State.

Amato’s successor, Tom O’Brien, led his program to a pair of home wins against the Seminoles, thanks again to quarterback heroics. In 2010, Russell Wilson ran for 3 touchdowns and threw the game-winning pass to tight end George Bryan in the final two minutes to complete the comeback from a 14-point deficit at halftime to win 28-24

In 2012, Wilson’s successor Mike Glennon did the same thing, throwing a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown passes to Shadrach Thornton and Bryan Underwood. NC State scored 17 unanswered points in the second half to overcome a 16-0 deficit.

Ryan Finley had his hands all over the Wolfpack’s victories in 2017-18, throwing 5 touchdown passes in the two games, and one-time FSU quarterback Bailey Hockman directed the 38-22 victory against his former team during the 2020 pandemic-affected schedule that kicked off a four-game winning streak, allowing NC State to finish with an 8-3 regular season.

So what’s at stake in Saturday’s 31st consecutive meeting since 1992? Another Leary-directed win would put him on the same footing as quarterback legends Barnette, Rivers, Wilson, Glennon and Finley, four of which have played in the NFL.

It would also make head coach Dave Doeren, now in his 10th season with the Wolfpack, the winningest NC State coach in the series between the two teams, surpassing Bowden-protégé Amato’s four victories against the Seminoles and giving him three home wins against FSU, something no NC State coach has ever done in the rivalry.

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