NC State football countdown to kickoff: 93
The NC State football season opener for 2023 is at Connecticut on Aug. 31 — or 93 days away. TheWolfpacker.com’s countdown for the season looks at the significance of the number 93 in Pack history.
NC State Football And No. 93
• The No. 93 has not been a popular jersey number during head coach Dave Doeren’s 10-year tenure at NC State. Only one scholarship, position player has ever worn the jersey number — former defensive lineman Justin Jones.
And Jones did not even wear No. 93 for his entire Wolfpack career. He switched to No. 27 before Jones became a third-round draft choice of the Chargers in 2018.
• The first time that NC State football played more than one game in a season was in 1893. Under head coach Bart Gatlin, the Wolfpack went 2-0 that year, defeating Tennessee 12-6 and Raleigh Academy 13-0 in a doubleheader played on Nov. 8, 1893.
Gatlin’s record at NC State in his three years as a head coach: 3-4-1, including losing all three games against North Carolina. Interesting fact on Gatlin: he was succeeded by his predecessor, Perrin Busbee.
• One hundred years after Gatlin made his brief NC State football coaching tenure debut, another Wolfpack coach had his first year at the helm.
The Mike O’Cain era began in 1993. O’Cain took over after College Football Hall of Famer Dick Sheridan’s surprise resignation. Thus if tradition holds, NC State football will be breaking in a new coach in 2093.
O’Cain and the Pack began the season ranked No. 24 in the preseason and started 2-0 with wins over Purdue and Wake Forest.
Then came losses to UNC and Clemson, which dropped NC State out of the polls. A four-game winning streak highlighted by a home victory over ranked Virginia had the Pack back in the top 25, but that was a brief stay. A 3-8 Duke team upset NC State, 21-20, starting a stretch of three losses in four games, including to Michigan in the Hall of Fame Bowl.
O’Cain’s first year ended with a 7-5 record, including 4-4 in the ACC.
• The first time that a NC State quarterback led the ACC in passing yards per game was 1961 when College Football Hall of Famer Roman Gabriel did the honors.
Gabriel completed 99 of 186 passes that season for 937 yards in 10 games and had eight scoring tosses with six interceptions. Gabriel’s average yards per game was 93.7.
In 2018, when NC State quarterback Ryan Finley led the conference in yards per game, his total was more than tripled that at 302.2 yards a contest.
