North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Remembering NC State's '79 ACC Title
9/11/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
This story is reprinted with permission from "The Wolfpacker" and Coman Publishing Co.
Editor's note: The school will hold a reunion of the 1979 ACC Championship team Nov. 13-14, during the weekend of the NC State-Clemson game. Former players can fill out the attached questionnaire or contact Associate Athletics Director Dick Christy at dick_christy@ncsu.edu. A block of rooms is reserved at the Embassy Suites in Cary with a special group rate of $95 per night, which includes a complimentary breakfast in the morning and a cocktail hour in the evening. For reservations, call (919) 677-1840 and mention the NC State room block.
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. - It may have been NC State's most bittersweet football season.
In 1979, a year after Ted Brown left as the Atlantic Coast Conference's all-time leading rusher, the Wolfpack claimed its seventh ACC championship.
It was the only title for ill-fated coach Bo Rein, who left the Wolfpack to become the head coach at LSU but was tragically killed in an airplane crash just a few months after leading NC State to the title while on a recruiting trip.
What remains in the memory of many Wolfpack fans is how close the season came to being perhaps the best in school history. Instead, Rein's team finished with a 7-4 overall record and was left out of post-season play, during an era when the few available bowl bids went out early and didn't always go to the most deserving team.
So instead of going to face Michigan in the Gator Bowl, a bid that went to ACC runner-up North Carolina, or the Garden State Bowl, which conflicted with the school's exam schedule, the Wolfpack opted to stay home following its championship season.
"I don't think we regret it," said all-star defensive back Woodrow Wilson. "You can't look back on it now and have second thoughts. We thought we should have gone to a better bowl. But we lost four games by very narrow margins.
"That kind of hurt us."
The Wolfpack entered the season heavily armed on defense, with nine starters returning from the 1978 Tangerine Bowl championship team, including Wilson, tackles Simon Gupton and Bubba Green, linebackers Robert Abraham and Joe Hannah and defensive backs Eric Williams, Donnie Legrande and Mike Nall.
The offense had unanimous All-America and Outland Trophy winner Jim Ritcher at center, a veteran quarterback in senior Scott Smith, and a rising star receiver in sophomore Mike Quick.
Smith and Quick made a big splash in just the second game, connecting on a 69-yard touchdown pass that Quick turned into his first career touchdown.
After winning its first four games, the Wolfpack moved up to No. 14 in the Associated Press poll, but suffered a big setback at Auburn after taking an early 14-0 lead. On one play, five starters went down to injury.
"It looked like carnage out there, with so many of our guys down," remembered Ritcher, a two-time first-team All-ACC selection who had an All-Pro NFL career. "They were able to run the ball pretty good after that and we couldn't stop them."
Even though inside linebackers Robert Abraham and Dan Lute did not play in the next game, defensive coordinator Chuck Amato rallied his troops for a 7-0 shutout against perennial league powerhouse Maryland the very next week.
"We didn't have a lot of depth on our defense," said Wilson, a two-time All-ACC free safety. "I feel like if we didn't have all those guys hurt, we would have gone 11-0 that year."
Facing the arch-rival Tar Heels in front of the largest crowd (at that point) to ever see a game at Carter Stadium, the Wolfpack seemed poised for a comeback after an 89-yard touchdown march and a 49-yard touchdown pass from Smith to Quick that cut the lead to just a touchdown.
But while driving for the tying score, Smith was sacked by Tar Heel All-America linebacker Lawrence Taylor, causing a disputed fumble at the Wolfpack 12-yard line. UNC scored to secure the 35-21 victory, the Pack's only ACC loss of the season.
The team bounced back from the disappointment with a dramatic 16-13 victory at Clemson, thanks a 25-yard field goal by Nathan Ritter with nine minutes to play, a goal-line stand by the veteran defense with three minutes to play and an interception by safety Mike Nall with less than a minute to play.
"I got to play in a lot of bowl games and big games in my career, but one of the things I will always vividly remember is standing on the sidelines watching our defense out there at Death Valley trying to stop Clemson," Ritcher said. "They had four straight plays down on the goal line and our defense held them all four downs.
"I had great pride just being able to watch that."
The next weekend, the team made its second consecutive trip to the Palmetto State and suffered a heart-breaking non-conference loss to former ACC foe South Carolina and eventual Heisman Trophy winner George Rogers. The Gamecocks built a 30-14 lead going into the fourth quarter, thanks to a pair of fumbles by the Wolfpack offense. State scored twice in the final period, but could not recover a late onsides kick to set up a possible game-winning possession.
The following week was perhaps the most disappointing home loss in NC State football history, a 9-7 defeat against Penn State that cost Rein's team the opportunity to go to a major bowl.
With defenses ruling the day, the Wolfpack scored the game's only touchdown with 1:18 remaining on the clock, on a two-yard plunge by Smith, to take a 7-6 lead.
But the Joe Paterno-coached Nittany Lions converted a fourth-and-26 with a 36-yard pass completion. That put kicker Herb Menhardt in position to attempt a 54-yard field goal with one second remaining. His kick bounced off the right upright and through the goal, giving his team the victory and breaking the hearts of the 51,200 Pack fans in the stadium.
In an anti-climatic win in front of 24,000 fans at Duke's Wallace Wade Stadium, the Pack earned its first ACC title since 1973 with a relative easy 28-7 win over the Blue Devils.
While many of the players have been regulars at the three former football player reunion weekends Tom O'Brien began when he became head coach, there hasn't been a full team reunion in a while. So NC State senior associate athletics director David Horning, who was an outside linebacker on that team, is organizing a full-team reunion for the Nov. 14 game against Clemson.
They can reminisce about the Wolfpack's last ACC championship, and discuss whether they made the right call to decline the invitation to the Garden State Bowl. Odds are, they will still be unanimous on that count.
"I would have loved to have gone to a bowl game, but would I have traded the ACC Championship for that?" Ritcher said. "No, I wouldn't have."
Since then, the Wolfpack has gone to 15 bowl games, but has yet to match the '79 ACC title.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
