Tim Peeler: Looking back at the first-ever Thursday NC State vs. Wake Forest matchup in Winston-Salem

There was little to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day 1962 for Atlantic Coast Conference football, the first time NC State ever played Wake Forest on a Thursday in Winston-Salem.

Five of the league’s eight teams were destined to have losing records, both overall and in conference action. Clemson and Maryland were barely over .500, both finishing 6-5 overall.

Duke was the only team to enter the national rankings at any point in the season, starting at No. 8 the preseason poll then dropping out following a season-opening 14-7 loss to Southern California. The Blue Devils salvaged an 8-2 record and an undefeated ACC slate by beating North Carolina in the final game of the season to win its third consecutive title, but they were champions of a barely mediocre league.

For the second consecutive year, no team from the ACC was selected to play in a postseason bowl game.

And the season came to a crashing end at city-owned Bowman Gray Stadium, where barely 5,000 fans showed up to see the winless Demon Deacons host the 2-6-1 Wolfpack in a game that pretty muc h meant less than nothing.

Because it was played on a holiday — a throwback to the old Southern Conference days when the two next door neighbors played in Raleigh on Thanksgiving or during the State Fair — students were absent from the stands. Neither school sent its marching band, leaving the pregame national anthem to the band from Elkin High and halftime entertainment to Grimsley High’s band.

Homestanding Wake had three cheerleaders and visiting State had seven.

The rivalry matchup had many observers wondering if the televised NFL football games were killing interest in college football.

“Something has happened, but what?” asked Greensboro News columnist Smith Barrier in his Thursday morning report on the game. “Today’s Thanksgiving football centers on the television screen where Detroit’s Lions play the Green Bay Packers, as they did today, and that changed a few mother’s plans for mid-day turkey dinner, just as the live games used to do.”

Befitting the lack of interest, the game had practically no real action until the fourth quarter. State halfback Tony Kosarky scored on the Wolfpack’s first drive of the contest for a 7-0 lead. Wake had multiple opportunities to tie the score, especially after quarterback Wally Birdwell hit a 48-yard pass to Sam Green in the second quarter to the State 20. Four plays later, the Deacons turned the ball over on downs at the 12.

Wake had another chance to tie the game early in the third quarter after Wake blocked State kicker Dave Houtz’s punt and recovered it at the NC State 22. The Deacon offense, which scored just 11 points in the season’s final four games, made only two yards on three plays, leaving the Deacs’ only points on the foot of kicker Mickey Walker, who made a 37-yard field goal.

Wake didn’t cross midfield the rest of the game.

State quarterback Jim Rossi, who had the unenviable task of succeeding two-time All-America Roman Gabriel, needed three fourth-down conversions and a gimmick tackle-eligible pass to Fred Bernhart just to make some headway against a defense that had given up an average of 28 points in its first nine games.

Late in the third quarter, Rossi hit wide receiver Don Montgomery on a 7-yard touchdown pass to give his team a buffer going into the dreaded final period, in which the Wolfpack had been outscored 84-12 that season.

NC State managed to score twice more in the fourth quarter of the 27-3 victory, including a 50-yard touchdown pass from reserve quarterback Billy Kirger to Ray Barlow.

Those two scores gave Wake return specialist Donnie Frederick the chance to set the dubious record for most kickoff returns in a season with 27. He came up 37 yards short, however, of setting the record for most kickoff return yardage in a season.

Yes, it was a different world in college football and around the ACC, but the season-ending victory had an impact for the Earle Edwards’ rebuilding Wolfpack. Over the next six seasons, Edwards’ team won or shared four ACC titles, finished second twice and was invited to two bowl games.

The two old-time rivals did play another early-season Thursday night game in Winston-Salem, and it was similarly unmemorable.

On Sept. 25, 1997, the teams met at Groves Stadium, and the Demon Deacons took a 19-18 victory, mainly because the Wolfpack had a field goal blocked, a field goal bounce off the left upright and a field goal go wide right as time expired.

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

Thursday games between NC State and Wake Forest

10/19/1916 NC State 6, Wake Forest 0 Wake Forest
11/27/1917 NC State 17, Wake Forest 6 Raleigh
11/27/1919 NC State 21, Wake Forest 7 Raleigh
11//25/1920 NC State 49, Wake Forest 7 Raleigh
10/13/1927 NC State 30, Wake Forest 7 Raleigh
10/18/1928 NC State 37, Wake Forest 0 Raleigh
10/17/1929 NC State 8, Wake Forest 6 Raleigh
10/16/1930 Wake Forest 7, NC State 0 Raleigh
11/22/1962 NC State 27, Wake Forest 3 Winston-Salem
9/27/1997 Wake Forest 19, NC State 18 Winston-Salem
11/8/2018 Wake Forest 27, NC State 24 Raleigh
9/11/2025 NC State at Wake Forest Winston-Salem