Not all hurricanes are bad.
Take Gladys, for example. As this Category 1 hurricane approached the North Carolina coast Oct. 18, 1968, it began dumping enough rain to officially end the state’s longest drought in more than half a century.
It helped Earle Edwards’ NC State football team win the 1968 ACC championship, flushing a Quayle from its covey.
The relatively minor storm is remembered as one of the most beneficial hurricanes in state history, thanks to the 3-to-5 inches of rain that fell across the region, without the detrimental flooding that hit South Carolina caused by the 13 inches of rain that fell near Marion, S.C. That rain brought relief to the parts of the state that hadn’t been so dry since 1932.
So, as North Carolina prepares for the arrival of Hurricane Florence, let’s at least appreciate that not all of the two dozen or so hurricanes that have hit the Old North State during football season are devastating, even if Flo seems destined to be an all-time hit from the coast to the Triangle to the Piedmont.
Gladys skirted just east of Cape Hatteras, with wind gusts of 90 miles an hour around Cape Lookout. Other gusts could have been higher, but the anemometer measuring wind speeds blew off its base at the Nags Head weather station and no other official data was recorded.
The system drew moisture across the western North Carolina mountains and dumped most of it in the central part of the state before it bounced off Hatteras on Sunday morning.
It made for an interesting football Saturday in the Triangle for NC State and North Carolina, while Duke traveled to Clemson and Wake Forest to Purdue.
Just a year before, all four teams played on the same field on the same day in the first — and so far only — football doubleheader in ACC history. NC State-North Carolina played the first game while Wake Forest-Duke played the second, as Hurricane Doria made landfall as a Category 1 storm on the North Carolina-Virginia border. It never rained during the two football games, but 20-miles per hour wind gusts made field-goal attempts quite the adventure.
Against Virginia in 1968, the Wolfpack clearly benefited from the steady rain that fell over Carter Stadium, as it faced a high-powered offense that featured future ACC Player and Athlete of the Year Frank Quayle, a senior running back who ended his career as the most successful tailback in Cavalier history. His 1,213 yards that season set the ACC single-season rushing record.
The Cavs entered the contest — the first ever played at Carter Stadium at the same time as the North Carolina State Fair across the street — averaging 497 yards and 36 points in its first four games of the season. The Wolfpack had performed well in its ACC games, beating Wake Forest, North Carolina and South Carolina, but it had lost badly in non-conference road games at Oklahoma (28-14) and Southern Methodist (35-14).
Gladys’ rain turned Carter Stadium’s crowned turf into a Quayle-quelling quagmire.
Against the remnants of the White Shoes Defense from the year before — which included defensive end Mark Capuano and tackle Ron Carpenter — Quayle gained just 67 yards on 18 carries. On the other side of the ball, State’s Charlie Bowers gained 106 yards on 20 carries, setting up the Wolfpack’s only offensive touchdown with runs of 25- and- 11 yards on the Pack’s opening drive.
The other scores came on a pair of Gerald Warren field goals (41 and 47 yards) and a 34-yard interception return for a touchdown in the fourth quarter by Paul Reid. The Cavaliers crossed midfield just four times in the game, managed just 162 yards rushing and had 14 yards passing in the pouring rain, while the Wolfpack put up 253 yards of total offense.
“We have no excuses because of the weather,” said Virginia coach Frank Blackburn, the eventual winner of the ACC Coach of the Year that season. “Both teams have to play in it.
“They just beat us with good, solid football.”
The fourth consecutive ACC win without a loss put NC State in the driver’s seat for its fifth ACC title under head coach Earle Edwards, which it completed despite a last-minute 24-19 home loss to Clemson two weeks later. The Wolfpack added conference wins over Maryland and Duke, the latter of which was 17-15 decision at Duke’s Wallace Wade Stadium, determined by a 99-yard fourth-quarter NCSU drive that followed the Pack’s second goal-line stand.
The win over the Blue Devils gave Edwards the fifth ACC title of his 16-year career, which trails only Florida State’s Bobby Bowden and Virginia’s George Welsh for the most by an ACC coach.
The rebuilding season — State had to replace 17 of its 22 starters from the 1967 Liberty Bowl champion team — ended with a 48-7 loss to Florida State at Carter Stadium that ended the Wolfpack’s postseason dream despite its 6-4 overall and 6-1 ACC records.
Virginia was the only other conference team to finish the season with a winning mark (7-3). No ACC team was invited to one of the 11 bowl games that year, though all three of the Wolfpack’s non-conference opponents were invited to play in the postseason.
It’s part of this remarkable fact: In five of the seven seasons NC State won ACC football titles, it has not been invited to play in the postseason.
Instead, Gladys delivered a much needed Water Bowl to the rest of the state.
Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.
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