They were almost too much fun, those annual NC State-Duke football games of yore.

From the first meeting, which State won 14-0 at Riddick Field in 1924, to the last, which Duke won at Wallace Wade Stadium 38-20 in 2013, the 84-game series between the cross-Triangle rivals has always been a lively affair, probably even more so than the Wolfpack’s other two Big Four rivals, North Carolina and Wake Forest.

Those other two have been regular opponents through the years, with the State-Wake game being the third-oldest continuous rivalry in college football history and Carolina a mostly regular affair following World War I.

The Duke rivalry, which will be renewed Saturday at Carter-Finley Stadium, was a mainstay on the schedule for 80 years, with the only missed game coming in 1944, when both Duke and UNC canceled games against NC State during World War II.

ACC expansion, and the unbalanced schedule that came with it, changed all that. The Wolfpack and Blue Devils have met only three times since Philip Rivers left for the NFL. Maybe it’s because Rivers took his weekly mid-game leak in the pine straw next to the Wallace Wade Stadium grandstands during his sophomore season, since it was just too far to go to the visiting locker room a quarter-mile away from the playing field.

From 1986-2003, the series featured some of the most entertaining outcomes in all of the ACC, even when neither team was particularly strong on the field. Eleven of those 18 games were decided by less than a touchdown.

Like the dramatic shootouts in 1987 and ‘88, when the teams combined for 178 points in two games, with NC State winning 47-45 in the first showdown, the highest-scoring contest in the rivalry, and the teams dueling to a dramatic 43-43 tie the next year.

In that second of those games, head coach Dick Sheridan surprised everyone by starting sophomore Charles Davenport over veteran Shane Montgomery, a move that kind of backfired until Montgomery came off the bench to throw three touchdown passes to All-America wide receiver Nasrallah Worthen.

After Duke’s Anthony Dilweg threw a touchdown pass with 57 seconds remaining for the game’s fifth lead change, Montgomery drove the Wolfpack down the field, thanks to a pair of controversial defensive penalties, within field goal range. Kicker Damon Hartman tied the game with no time left on the clock.

It will forever remain the highest scoring tie in ACC history.

The margins in the early 1990s were razor thin with four out of five games being decided by a field goal or less.

• In 1991, quarterback Terry Harvey made the first start of his career and led the Wolfpack to a pair of touchdowns in the final four minutes of a 32-31 victory, with the help of a Hartman onside kick.

• In 1993, Duke coach Barry Wilson announced his resignation the week before the game and the Blue Devils sent him on his way with a 21-20 victory that was decided when quarterback Geoff Bender’s two-point conversion attempt in the final seconds sailed out of bounds.

• In 1994, State fans tore down both goal posts at Carter-Finley Stadium and dragged them back to campus after beating a No. 18-ranked Blue Devil squad, as Harvey led his team on three scoring drives in the final 20 minutes, including a touchdown pass to Mike Guffie that gave State a 24-23 final margin. State’s reward? A trip to face Mississippi State in the Peach Bowl.

• In 1995, State established a quick lead that stretched to 31-17, its largest of the season, but Duke scored on its last three possessions to keep the game in doubt, particularly when Harvey left the game with an injured shoulder in favor of sophomore Jose Laureano, who saved the day with a fourth-quarter touchdown drive.

Even in Duke’s darkest days, when the Blue Devils lost 23 consecutive contests overall and 30 straight ACC decisions, the games were mostly close, except for the 55-31 State win in Durham during Rivers’ sophomore year of 2001.

The next year, as State fans anxiously waited to go across the street to the State Fair, Duke scored in the game’s final minute to close the game to two points, then recovered an onside kick making the Wolfpack nervous about its chances of improving to 8-0 for only the second time in school history. Duke, however, was unable to move the ball on the final possession, leaving the home team with candy apple smiles.

In Ted Roof’s first game as Duke’s interim head coach, near the end of the 2003 season, the game went down to the final play — a snap from Duke’s center that went over the head of quarterback Adam Smith to preserve a 28-21 Wolfpack victory, extend the Blue Devils’ ACC losing streak to 30 straight games and drew to a close the year-after-year meeting of the I-40 neighbors.

The Duke-NC State rivalry is too good — and too much fun — to be played every seven years.

Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.

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