The last time an undefeated NC State team went to Clemson with the hopes of establishing itself at the top of the Atlantic Coast Conference was Oct. 24, 2002, for a Thursday night made-for-television extravaganza.
Terrence Holt doesn’t remember a better day in his life.
The No. 12 Wolfpack faced unranked Clemson in front of 75,000 orange-frothing fans in Death Valley. It was an important ACC match-up with some added hullabaloo that started long before the season did, when Clemson coach Tommy Bowden and NC State Chuck Amato — one a natural born son of Bobby Bowden, the other the adopted — began chirping at each other.
The game turned saltier than the Dead Sea a full year before, when the younger Bowden and his staff accused NC State of using a video monitor in the Pack’s coaching box at Carter-Finley Stadium to keep track of the Tigers, a definite no-no that Amato vehemently denied. If it did happen, it certainly didn’t help the Wolfpack to slow down Tiger quarterback Woodrow Dantzler, who amassed 507 total yards in a 45-37 victory.
“Good thing we had those monitors, or Dantzler would’ve had 1,000 yards,” Amato joked prior to the 2002 game.
Still, there was perceived bad blood between the bloodless relatives.
ESPN, eager to hype the non-family feud, convinced both teams to move the game from its original Saturday slot to primetime Thursday night, becoming just the second weeknight game the Tigers ever played at Memorial Stadium.
The upstart Wolfpack came into the contest with a perfect 8-0 record, eager to prove they belonged in the Top 10, despite the skeptics on the other sideline and other corners of the ACC who wondered if Amato’s team had been properly tested in games against New Mexico State, East Tennessee State, Navy, Texas Tech, Massachusetts and its three ACC Big Four brethren.
So the rock-rubbing Tigers entered Death Valley with ill intent, hoping to hand the Pack its first loss and prevent the best start in school history. Amato’s Pack, on the other hand, was charging headlong towards the best season in 111 years of football history. The Pack — led offensively by juniors Philip Rivers and Jerricho Cotchery and freshman T.A. McLendon; defensively by seniors Dantonio Burnette and Holt — were more pumped up than the Goodyear blimp that floated over the stadium.
“We went into that game feeling like world-beaters, like we were invincible,” says Holt, a free safety that season. “I remember standing on the sidelines before the game talking to George Anderson and saying that we were the better team, that we were going to dominate.”
They were, and they did.
From the beginning of the game until the end, the Wolfpack controlled the Tigers. Holt scored the first touchdown of the game when he picked up a punt that was blocked by Manny Lawson and ran 39 yards for a touchdown. It was the eighth non-offensive touchdown the Pack had scored in nine games, the most by any team in the nation.
Amato then called for a fake extra point, with holder Chris Young running in for the two-point conversion and twisting the knife just a little on Clemson’s Doubting Tommy.
McLendon, who had rumbled over lesser defenses in the first eight games, bulldozed Clemson, rushing for 178 yards and two touchdowns in the contest. His first score was on a fourth-and-one situation in which he sling-shot around the end for a 31-yard run.
Holt not only scored on special teams, he recovered a fumble that set up one-yard scoring run by Rivers, giving the Pack a 22-0 lead at the half.
State kicker Adam Kiker hit a 25-yard field goal in the third quarter and McLendon scored his second touchdown on a four-yard run to extend the lead to 32-0.
Clemson got its only score of the game on an 80-yard muffed kickoff return, but the Wolfpack put an exclamation point on the victory when the Tigers tried an onside kick following its touchdown. The sure-handed Cotchery not only fielded the squib kick, he ran it 42 yards for the final touchdown in the 38-6 victory.
“It was by far the best game of my career, from a stat perspective and from an emotional perspective,” Holt says. “We were able to create turnovers and put a lot of points on the scoreboard.
“I just remember being totally prepared and ready to play in that game.”
The Wolfpack went into its next three games with the same feeling, but did not leave with the same outcome, losing its first game of the year at home to Georgia Tech, then at Maryland, then at Virginia—a three-game losing streak by a combined 15 points that Holt, his teammates and Wolfpack fans have never forgotten.
“It was a horrific feeling to have happen three weeks in a row, just gut wrenching,” Holt says. “No slight to those three teams, but we felt like we should have beaten all three of them. We felt like we had the better team.”
The season, of course, was not completely lost as the Wolfpack beat No. 14 Florida State in the regular-season finale, then answered with a dominating performance over No. 11 Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl on New Year’s Day to finish with a school-record 11 victories against three losses.
“It was just one of those things where one loss turned into three,” Holt says. “We were staggered and it took us a couple of games to recover.”
But on that one Thursday night 16 years ago, the Wolfpack landed nothing but punches against the Tigers, and lived for the next 10 days ranked in the top 10 of both polls.
Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.
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