NC State football countdown to kickoff: 100 days

The NC State football season opener for 2022 is at East Carolina on Sept. 3 — or 100 days away. The Wolfpacker starts its countdown for the season with a note about the number 100.

100: NC State football coaches with 100 or more career wins

NC State football head coach Dave Doeren is hoping to make history this season with an ACC title, the first for the Pack since 1979. If NC State accomplishes that in 2022, a double-digit win season is likely, perhaps even a 13-win campaign.

If Doeren wins 13 games this season, he reaches 100 for his career.  Doeren was 23-4 in two years at Northern Illinois, and he is 64-49 in nine seasons with the Wolfpack. That gives him a combined record of 87-53 overall.

Did you know that there have been only three former head coaches of NC State to have at least 100 career coaching wins?

Former NC State football coach Lou Holtz

The second stop of Lou Holtz’s Hall of Fame coaching career came at NC State.

The move came after a well-told story involving Holtz, then at William & Mary, and then-NC State director of athletics Willis Casey agreeing to meet in a gas station parking lot in South Hills, Va., following the 1970 season and legendary NC State football coach Earle Edwards’ retirement.

Each waited impatiently for an hour before realizing that the other person in the parking lot was who they were meeting. Casey told Holtz he didn’t look like a football coach. Holtz quipped in reply the Casey didn’t have the appearance of an athletics director.

Holtz originally turned down Casey, but Casey countered by suggesting they wait a year before finalizing any decisions. A week after the 1971 season, Holtz accepted the position, replacing the NC State interim coach Al Michaels.

Holtz led NC State football to one of its best four-year stretches in program history. The Wolfpack went 33-12-3 from 1972-75, including 16-5-2 in the ACC. NC State finished the year ranked in the top 20 in three out of four campaigns, including No. 9 in the coaches’ poll in 1974.

After the 1975 campaign, Holtz left for a one-year stint in the NFL as the head coach of the New York Jets. He was 46-32-3 in college at that point.

He returned to the college game in 1977 at Arkansas for seven seasons before a two-year run at Minnesota and then his most famous stint, head coach at Notre Dame for 11 years. He won a national title in South Bend in 1988 and had exactly 100 wins for the Fighting Irish.

Holtz padded 33 more wins in six years at South Carolina, a tenure that began with to NC State at Carter-Finley Stadium in 1997.

Overall, Holtz went 249-132-7 and is tied for the 33rd most wins in college football.

Former NC State football coach Dick Sheridan

Holtz is not the only former NC State football coach to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. This past fall, Dick Sheridan was honored for his stellar career the started with eight seasons at Furman and then seven more with the Wolfpack.

Sheridan was 69-23-2 at Furman when lured to Raleigh following the 1985 season. He had just one losing season with NC State, finished the year ranked in the top 25 three times and went to six bowl games at a time where bowls were less plentiful and perhaps more meaningful.

Sheridan went 52-29-3 from 1986-92 at NC State and was 121-52-5 overall in his career.

Former NC State football coach Tom O’Brien

Tom O’Brien was the only NC State football coach to actually achieve his 100th career win while coaching on the Wolfpack’s sideline, but most of O’Brien’s wins came at Boston College.

For 10 seasons at BC, O’Brien went 75-45. Then after the 2006 season, following a sixth straight eight-win season for the Eagles and third consecutive nine-win campaign, O’Brien surprised observers and accepted the job replacing Chuck Amato at NC State.

On pace to eclipse 100 career wins at Boston College in three more years when he left, it took O’Brien four seasons at NC State to get there.

Interestingly, O’Brien’s 100th career win came in the final game of Russell Wilson’s three-year run at quarterback for NC State football. Wilson helped lead the Pack to a 23-7 win over No. 22 West Virginia in the Champs Sports Bowl.

O’Brien would win 15 more games over the next two seasons before he was fired by NC State director of athletics Debbie Yow. After coaching two seasons as an assistant at Virginia, O’Brien retired with a head coaching record of 115-80.

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