For nearly 40 minutes, the Ohio Bobcats did what their nickname suggested: they bobbed up and down on a rain-soaked field at Carter-Finley Stadium, putting the 1998 season in peril only a couple of hours after it started on a dreary Thursday night.
The game was played on the back ends of hurricanes Bonnie and Earl, and a loss would have stained the heavily favored Wolfpack’s season more than the mud of the soggy field would have tarnished the home team’s white pants.
Not that many people were on hand to see what was about to transpire: the wind and rain kept the attendance to a reported 35,500, but many of those fans left late in the third quarter when Ohio took a 31-14 lead on quarterback Kareem Wilson’s third 1-yard touchdown run of the night.
The winds picked up, but so did the Wolfpack’s spirits when senior preseason All-America wide receiver Torry Holt turned a quick curl pass from quarterback Jamie Barnette into a creek-stomping 61-yard touchdown sprint.
For most of the game NC State’s defense was wallowing around on the field against Ohio’s option offense — masterminded by future Wake Forest coach and Pack nemesis Jim Grobe, who was in the fourth of his six years as head coach of the Bobcats. Ohio held the ball for 39:19 to the Wolfpack’s 18:36 and ran 86 offensive plays to the Pack’s 44, rolling up 361 rushing yards.
But in the two possessions after Holt’s touchdown, Ohio managed just one first down and minus-6 yards on offense.
The rain picked up, and the Wolfpack stayed on the ground on a six-play, 63-yard scoring drive, capped by a 22-yard touchdown run by freshman Ray Robinson with 10:33 remaining in the game that closed the gap to 31-27.
As Grobe’s offenses often did, Ohio took possession of the ball and chewed up more than five minutes off the clock, then pinned the Wolfpack down at its own 4-yard line. After three unsuccessful plays, Scott Earwood booted a 48-yard punt to put the Bobcats near midfield.
They gained no ground on three plays, forcing two critical punts. On the first, Ohio was called for holding, and Pack head coach Mike O’Cain made them do it again.
On the second punt, with the weather worsening, NC State wide receiver Roderick Brown, who was playing on special teams while his injured right wrist healed, stuck out his good hand and blocked Ohio punter David Zastudil’s kick.
The ball squirted through defensive end Brian Jamison’s hands and into the arms of wide receiver Chris Coleman, who splashed 13 yards for the game-deciding touchdown, completing a streak of 17 unanswered Wolfpack points.
“A win is a win,” Coleman said after the game. “It’s not going to be written down as a pretty win, but it’s a win.”
Grobe, of course, was disappointed at his team’s loss, but it was an inspiration when he entered the ACC as head coach at Wake Forest three years later and amassed a 7-6 record against the Wolfpack.
The victory was inspiring for O’Cain and his team. The next week, led by a superstar performance from Holt, the Wolfpack pulled off perhaps the biggest win in Carter-Finley Stadium, beating No. 2 Florida State in the only the second ACC loss in Seminoles’ history.
That contest was the third time in five years that the Wolfpack opened its season on a Thursday night in Carter-Finley.
Including one game in Columbia, S.C., in which the Gamecocks knocked Russell Wilson out of his first college start early, the Wolfpack has started its season on Thursday seven different times, compiling a 5-2 record.
Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.
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