You knew this would be the case: When former NC State head coach Dick Sheridan was selected to the College Football Hall of Fame last week, he would not acknowledge it as an individual award.

He views the career honor as a cumulative award, given to him, for the hard work of the many players, coaches and staff members he recruited, hired and nurtured through the years.

“It’s a shared honor,” said the coach who guided tiny Furman to the 1985 Division I-AA championship game and led NC State to a 52-29-3 record in his seven years (1986-92) with the Wolfpack. “Any kind of individual honor is because of what so many other people accomplished. I will happily accept it on behalf of all of them, so I can share it with them.”

Because of that, Sheridan didn’t really want to name any particular game or season as the biggest of his career.

I don’t mind doing it for him.

Sheridan came to Raleigh after eight years at Furman, where he had a knack for knocking off Division I-A teams. The Paladins, in fact, scored two wins over the Wolfpack in Raleigh under Sheridan’s guidance. The Wolfpack, meanwhile, had posted three consecutive 3-8 seasons before Sheridan’s arrival in 1986.

Before he stepped down in the summer of 1992 because of health reasons, Sheridan compiled the second-highest winning percentage (.637) in program history, behind fellow College Football Hall of Fame inductee Lou Holtz (.719 from 1972-75).

His first year was an amazing confluence of coaching and talent, in which the Wolfpack shocked the college football world by compiling an 8-3-1 record and earning an appearance in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta. Sheridan was given the Bobby Dodd Award as the national coach of the year for his impressive turnaround.

He took the Wolfpack to five more bowl games over the next six years, including beating Iowa in the 1988 Peach Bowl and Brett Favre and Southern Miss in the 1990 All-American Bowl.

So here are five wins that made a difference in Sheridan’s Wolfpack career:

There were more dramatic wins over bigger rivals during Sheridan’s inaugural season – the games against Wake Forest, North Carolina, Clemson and South Carolina all come to mind – but beating the three-time defending ACC champion Terrapins on their home field was the one that caught everyone off guard and established Sheridan’s teams as a threat in the conference.

Under head coach Bobby Ross, the No. 13 Terps had won 17 consecutive ACC games, which set the standard in the league until Florida State joined in 1992 and proceeded to win 29 straight over conference foes, and won the 1983-85 ACC titles.

That night at Byrd Stadium, the Terrapins took leads of 7-0 and 10-7 in the first half and 13-7 in the third quarter. Behind the play of future NFL-quarterback Erik Kramer, the Wolfpack scored 21 fourth-quarter points for the shocking 28-16 victory – State’s first over Maryland since 1979.

After Maryland pulled within five points on a Dan Plocki field goal late in the fourth quarter, Wolfpack defensive tackle John Adleta intercepted a point-blank pass from Maryland’s Dan Henning Jr. at the Maryland 35-yard line. Kramer put the Wolfpack ahead for good following a penalty and two ineffective plays, throwing a 37-yard pass to Nasrallah Worthen at the goal line, then plunging over on a 1-yard scoring run.

Worthen, a sophomore flanker from Jacksonville, Florida, had a record-breaking day, catching nine passes for 187 yards.

As the season went along, the Wolfpack recorded a rallying win over the Tar Heels, a total beatdown of Clemson on national television and the forever-famous win over South Carolina after time expired on a pass from Kramer to Danny Peebles. But none of them made a bigger statement than beating the Terps on their home field.

It was the first of five wins Sheridan recorded against the Terps in his seven years at NC State.

Sheridan split his first two games against the Wolfpack’s biggest rival. In the first, the Wolfpack beat Dick Crum’s Tar Heels in the final moments at Kenan Stadium, keeping alive its bowl hopes during a season full of last-second victories. The Tar Heels answered the next year, 17-14, at Carter-Finley Stadium, in Sheridan’s only losing season with the Wolfpack.

So the coach needed to establish some dominance over new Tar Heel head coach Mack Brown in 1988, when the Wolfpack went to Chapel Hill in the middle of the season.

Sheridan surprised the Heels by putting junior quarterback Shane Montgomery in the starting lineup for the first time that season and telling him to run a no-huddle offense. The result?

In that game 32 years ago, the Wolfpack delivered the biggest whipping by either team in the history of the 109-game rivalry.

“It kind of made me wonder why we didn’t do that in every game that season,” Sheridan said. “Maybe I wasn’t that smart.”

The game started out with a 13-play, 73-yard drive for a Wolfpack touchdown, followed by a drive all the way to the 1-yard line by the Tar Heels. Ultimately, UNC couldn’t score on that play and never did reach the end zone that day.

The Tar Heels — who had already fallen victim to Oklahoma, Auburn, Wake Forest, Louisville and South Carolina in Brown’s inaugural season — did put up three points early in the second quarter, but that was followed by a 19-yard touchdown from Montgomery to Chris Corders, a 1-yard touchdown run by Mal Crite and a 54-yard field goal by Damon Hartman, all in less than five minutes before halftime.

The final two scores before halftime came with less than a minute to play in the second quarter, thanks to a pair of interceptions by linebacker Fred Stone that gave his team a 27-3 edge at intermission.

The Wolfpack didn’t let up in the second half, as Montgomery threw another touchdown pass to Worthen. A pair of interceptions, one by Michael Brooks and one by Dexter Royal, led to the game’s final two touchdowns.

By the end of the day, there was little blue in the stadium and lots of blues in Chapel Hill, as the Tar Heels suffered their ninth consecutive loss and a school-worst six straight defeats to start the season. More importantly, it was the first of a school-record five consecutive wins by Sheridan’s Wolfpack in a rivalry that dates back to 1894.

Players from this era always remind Sheridan of how they ended future NFL legend Brett Favre’s collegiate career. It took a full 40-minute effort, however, including two last-ditch efforts by the senior slinger from Southern Mississippi.

The Wolfpack took a 31-21 lead in the fourth quarter, thanks to back-to-back big plays. Sophomore linebacker David Merritt stepped in front of a Favre pass and intercepted it on the USM side of the field. On the next play, fullback Greg Manior bulled straight up the middle for a 41-yard touchdown run with 6:21 left to play.

The game was far from over, however, because Favre got two more opportunities to lead the high-powered Southern Miss offense, which not only featured the quarterback but also future first-round NFL pick Tony Smith. Favre immediately led his team on an 86-yard scoring drive, making the score 31-27. But his two-point conversion attempt failed, meaning the Golden Eagles had to score another touchdown against a Wolfpack defense that was ranked No. 10 in the nation to win the game.

When State’s offense, which played by far its best game of the season, failed to get a first down on its final possession, Favre got an opportunity to win the game, taking over with 2:01 remaining on the clock.

He drove the Eagles all the way down to the NC State 20-yard line with eight seconds left. On the final play of the game and the last play of Favre’s collegiate career, the star quarterback was flushed out of the pocket and chased to the sidelines by defensive end Corey Edmonds. In desperation, Favre fumbled the ball forward and out of bounds, trying to stop the clock.

The win salvaged what to that point had been a disappointing 6-5 season that was pocked with preseason injuries and 26 regular-season turnovers.

Celebrating its 100th year of football, NC State was aided to its first nine-win season since 1978 by a pair of back-to-back wins over ranked opponents. First, Sheridan continued his domination of Tar Heel coach Mack Brown, with a 24-7 win at Carter-Finley Stadium.

Then, the next week, defending national champion Georgia Tech came to Raleigh buzzing about its 2-2 record and ready to take it out on Sheridan’s Pack. They didn’t.

State’s defense scored twice, first on a 32-yard interception return by linebacker Tyler Lawrence and a 26-yard fumble return by Ricky Turner, to keep the Pack in the game.

But it was a 74-yard, fourth-quarter touchdown drive led by freshman quarterback Terry Jordan, making his first collegiate start, to seal the victory for Sheridan and the Pack.

“To beat this team was a big step for us,” Sheridan said, as his team improved to 5-0 overall on the season and 3-0 in the ACC.

Losses to Clemson and Virginia knocked the Wolfpack out of contention for the ACC race, and a loss to East Carolina in the Peach Bowl left a bad taste in the mouth of many fans, but knocking off the defending national champion was a highlight in Sheridan’s career.

It was a big deal in the early 1990s to have the opportunity to play 13 games. It was an even bigger deal to do it on a nationally televised stage against a prominent opponent. So appearing in the 10th-annual Kickoff Classic was an important stage for Sheridan and his team.

Sheridan’s Wolfpack had beaten Iowa four years earlier in the Peach Bowl, a 28-23 upset in a second-half downpour. This game, however, meant even more.

Anthony Barbour raced 49 yards for a touchdown to give the Pack a 14-7 lead, but Iowa quarterback Jim Hartlieb tied the game with his second touchdown pass just before halftime.

For the longest time, it seemed as if neither team would take charge, but a 46-yard field goal by kicker Steve Videtich with 6:50 remaining in the game gave his team the lead. A defensive stop of the Hawkeyes on a fourth-down gamble and a 5-yard pass from Jordan to receiver Eddie Goines gave the Wolfpack an insurmountable cushion with less than a minute to play.

“Those games [in 1988 and ‘92] were big because [Iowa] was a Big 10 team,” Sheridan said. “It was an opportunity to represent the ACC on a big stage.”

The Pack again posted a nine-win season – including more wins over North Carolina and Maryland, a non-conference win over Texas Tech and a 13-13 tie of Virginia Tech – and earned an invitation to the Gator Bowl, where it faced Southeastern Conference foe Florida.

However, in what turned out to be Sheridan’s final game, the Gators posted a 27-10 win in a game shrouded by fog.

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

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