The Wolfpacker's No. 9 story of the decade: Winning the rivalry in football
Throughout the week, The Wolfpacker will be enumerating its choices for the top 10 stories of the past decade that was in NC State athletics.
The countdown begins with No. 9:
Related link: No. 10 - Kevin Keatts is hired
Nothing if finer, for NC State football at least, than beating Carolina. For the second straight decade, the Wolfpack did that more times than not.
The Heels may have gotten the last laugh this past fall in Carter-Finley Stadium, but the final tally still shows NC State went 6-4 against UNC in the decade. This comes after it also went 6-4 against the Heels in the prior 10 years. Thus the W-L since the turn of the millennial: 12-8 in favor of the Wolfpack.
The past 10 years though certified the weirdness of the rivalry:
• Multiple scrums, including UNC linebacker Kevin Reddick throwing a punch at NC State receiver Jarvis Williams in 2010, UNC defensive tackle Jalen Dalton being ejected after throwing a punch at Pack offensive lineman Terronne Prescod during a skirmish in 2016 and then a bit of a melee after NC State’s overtime win in 2018 that resulted in numerous players from both teams being suspended.
• On the positive for NC State: the two-yard Hail Mary from Russell Wilson to Owen Spencer that sparked NC State’s win over the Heels in 2010.
• On the negative for NC State: the Gio Bernard punt return that ended NC State’s five-game winning streak against the Heels in 2013.
• The infamous “triple play” remark leading up to the two teams’ 2011 game from former NC State head coach Tom O’Brien in response to then-UNC interim head coach Everett Withers saying on a local radio interview that his school was the “flagship” of the state.
"I'm just going to coach my football team, and I'm not going to coach his," O'Brien responded. "As far as the flagship, here is a guy that's on a football staff that ends up in Indianapolis. If you take three things you can't do in college football, you have an agent on your staff, you're paying your players and you have academic fraud. I mean, that's a triple play as far as the NCAA goes.
"I don't know what he has anything to talk about, or they have anything to talk about. If that's what the people want in their flagship university at North Carolina, then so be it."
NC State would go on to defeat UNC, 13-0, a few days later.
• That may not have been the most famous quote by a Wolfpack coach though in the rivalry. After NC State ran over, literally, UNC in a 35-7 victory in 2014, Pack head coach Dave Doeren said:
"This is a blue-collar school and this is a work ethic, hands in the dirt school," Doeren said. "It's an agricultural school, a textile school and an engineering school. It is founded by tough people. That is what this football team will be, and that is what we were today."
A new decade will begin with a test in Chapel Hill, and the Heels potentially on the upswing largely thanks to the right arm of freshman quarterback Sam Howell. NC State will hope that Kenan Stadium will still be called “Carter-Finley North,” as Ryan Finley said in 2018 after the Pack’s third straight win there.
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