North Carolina State University Athletics
Pack Ready for Rival Games
11/8/1999 12:00:00 AM | Football
Ask a fan to name NC State's two biggest rivals and chances are that North Carolina and East Carolina will be among the first schools mentioned-especially in football. And while the Wolfpack has met the Tar Heels and Pirates in the same season many times, never before has it tangled with those two in-state foes in back to back weeks.
There's always a first time for everything.
The Pack will pour every ounce of energy and emotion it can muster into Thursday night's game against Carolina in Charlotte. Then it will turnaround and try to do the same thing when it travels to Greenville for a season ending contest against ECU the very next week.
"It always helps to be playing emotional types of games towards the end of the season," said NC State head coach Mike O'Cain. "Next week (at ECU) we're looking at going into a very hostile situation, probably as hostile an environment as NC State has ever played in. We want to make sure we take care of the things that we control this week so that we don't have to go down to Greenville needing a win to qualify for a bowl game."
With its 6-4 overall record, NC State can almost assure itself of earning a post-season birth somewhere by beating the 1-8 Tar Heels on Thursday night. On the surface, that wouldn't seem to be a difficult task, but as they say about rivalry games: "You can throw out the record book."
"We know that we're going to get their very best effort," O'Cain said of North Carolina. "It doesn't matter what the records are in this game. We were in the same situation when we played them in 1995. We didn't have an awful lot riding on the line other than an opportunity to beat North Carolina. They don't have an awful lot on the line other than an opportunity to beat and NC State and keeping NC State out of a bowl game."
In 1995, the Wolfpack nearly prevented the Heels from qualifying for a bowl game. With Carolina leading 30-28 in the final seconds, NC State failed on a two-point conversion attempt, which if successful, would have tied the game and kept UNC home for the holidays.
While he trusts his players will be ready for Carolina, O'Cain also hopes there will be some semblance of perspective in their approach.
"We've got to make sure that this game doesn't overshadow everything else that we do," he said. "It would be a little bit different if we didn't have another game at the end. You put a tremendous amount of emotion into it, but you've got to make sure that no matter what the outcome is on Thursday night, you're ready to come back and play another emotional game the next week. We can't leave it all in Charlotte."
NC State's gas tank is overflowing right now, but what will the fuel gauge look like next week? It will certainly take a pair of high-octane performances to put the Pack over the top in its last two games.
