Editor’s Note: The factual errors in the original story have been corrected.
It’s not just another game. The N.C. State-East Carolina series is rivalry, according to both coaches. The Wolfpack will travel to Greenville for only the second time on Saturday.
The in-state rivals have played in games that have caused controversy, damaged stadiums and resulted in the firing of several coaches. Yet the series is barely 25 years old.
Birth of a rivalry
Frank Weedon was an associate athletics director at State when East Carolina first came to town in 1970. He said the series was not played earlier due to conference affiliation at the time.
“We were in the ACC,” he said. “They weren’t in a league at that time. So we stuck with conference teams and out-of-state teams.”
State beat the Pirates in the first game, winning 23-6. The schools squared off every year until 1987. Every game was played at Carter-Finley Stadium.
There has been a lot of speculation as to why the Pack never made the trip to Greenville, according to former Wolfpack coach Mike O’Cain.
“It was just a thing that East Carolina was always going to come to Raleigh,” he said. “Their stadium wasn’t big at the time, so that may have been a part of it. Maybe N.C. State felt that if they were going to play East Carolina it had to be played in Raleigh.”
It may have been the consistent home-field advantage, but State dominated the series early, winning 10 of the first 13 games. Despite playing every game against the Pack on the road, O’Cain said the Pirates considered State to be their biggest rival.
“The N.C. State game was probably the biggest game on the schedule,” he said. “At that time, it had been a long time since anyone else in the state had played East Carolina. And in 1985, they were playing each other every year.”
After spending a year as an assistant coach with ECU, O’Cain joined the staff of former Pack coach Dick Sheridan. A year later, he witnessed one of the defining moments in the bitter rivalry.
Series Suspended
ECU came to town in 1987 having beaten State twice in their last four trips. The Pirates dominated the heavily-favored Pack 32-14, sending their fans into a frenzy.
ECU fans swarmed the field and tore down the goalposts.
“After the game, it just kind of got out of hand,” O’Cain said. “They called it a riot. It was a nasty scene.”
The stadium suffered significant damage, prompting then-athletics director Jim Valvano to permanently suspend the series. Weedon said the outcome of the game reflected poorly on the students.
“It was nothing disastrous, but it wasn’t sportsmanship,” he said. “So, they decided to put a cooling period on it.”
The cooling period
While it would be years before the teams met again in the regular season, State and ECU met again, by chance, in the 1992 Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
Several years later, the Pirates found themselves back at Carter-Finley under a set of completely different circumstances.
In 1999, Hurricane Floyd ripped through the eastern part of North Carolina, completely flooding the city of Greenville. The players, on the road at South Carolina at the time, lost most of their possessions in the aftermath and were left without a home stadium.
ECU was scheduled to play powerhouse Miami the next week at home, so State agreed to let the team borrow Carter-Finley, according to O’Cain.
“They had gone through a tremendous tragedy and needed help,” he said. “I’m glad to say that we were able to help, and that they won the football game.”
The Pirates beat the Hurricanes, and fans stormed the field and tore down the goalposts.
Rivalry reignited
Due in part to pressure from the state legislature, the regular-season series eventually resumed.
The day ECU fans had anticipated for almost 30 years came in 1999, as O’Cain, now State’s coach, took the Pack on the road to Greenville for the first time in the history of the rivalry.
“It was big for us at N.C. State that year, particularly because there was a lot of talk about if we didn’t win the game, then I would be fired,” O’Cain said. “Obviously, we went on and lost that ball game. Ultimately, the next week I was fired, and that’s history.”
History will be made again this Saturday, as coach Tom O’Brien takes State on the road to Greenville for only the second time. The Pirates (4-3) are coming off two impressive victories, according to O’Brien.
“They’re much more confident in what they’re doing,” he said. “They’re scoring a ton of points and doing a lot of it at the end of the game.”
The Pack comes to town having lost five of the last seven to its rival.
Coach Skip Holtz, the son of former State coach Lou Holtz, said he expects a rowdy atmosphere at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium due to the history between the teams. “We’ve had a great environment at home for our first three games,” Holtz said. “The crowds have been great. They’ve been emotional. They’ve been into it. But I don’t think there’s any doubt that this one will be more a little more special.”