The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1137844
150 ■ THE WOLFPACKER ■ PACK PAST we had quality guys throughout the lineup. No wonder we won the ACC championship. That team deserves a 30 for 30." And why hasn't it happened again? "That's a great question for someone a lot smarter than I am," Quick said. Smith was a steady veteran under center with multiple choices who, while not as explosive as Brown, dominated in Rein's option offense: leading rusher Dwight Sul- livan (680 yards), Billy Ray Vickers (636) and Smith (451) gained nearly 2,000 yards between them. Smith, with 13 rushing touchdowns on the season, is the last Wolfpack quarterback to lead the team in scoring for a season. Though he only completed 75 passes that season, Smith had two future NFL players as targets, the leading receiver Quick (30 receptions for 524 yards and four touch- downs) and tight end Lin Dawson (15 re- ceptions for 201 yards and one score). Sullivan, with 10, was the only other player to get double-digit catches. Led by center Ritcher, the Wolfpack had perhaps the best offensive line in school history with guards Chris Dieterich and Chuck Stone and tackles Chris Koehne and Chris Carr. The defensive front was just as good, with middle guards Bubba Green and John Stanton, and tackles Simon Gupton, Brian O'Doherty and Dennis Owens. Lineback- ers Robert Abraham and Dan Lute an- chored the inside with David Shelton and Neal Musser, while Joe Hannah, Ricky Etheridge and David Horning roamed the outside ends. The defensive backfield had The Presi- dent, senior Woodrow Wilson, in charge, along with freshman future NFL standout Eric Williams, junior Donnie LeGrande and senior Mike Nall. LeGrande led the team that year with 104 tackles. And on special teams, sure-footed kicker Nathan Ritter, who made 17 field goals as a sophomore in 1978, was the smallest player on the field, but often had the big- gest impact. He hit on seven of his nine attempts as a junior. Ritcher, Dieterich, Gupton and Wilson all earned first-team All-ACC honors in 1979. Rein, the youngest coach in college football when he was named Lou Holtz' replacement in 1976, was one of the best young offensive minds in college coaching. LSU was so impressed with Rein's suc- cess at NC State, it hired him away at the end of the 1979 season. Rein, mastermind of the Wolfpack offense, was particularly adept at putting defenses in bad positions, even if he didn't always have more talent. "Every week, we had about 12 to 16 new plays that the other team hadn't seen," remembered wideout Curtis Rein, Bo's younger brother who played for four years with the Wolfpack. "The defenses had no clue what we were going to do because we changed every week. "We probably weren't the most talented team, but we were a tight team that hung together." Maybe it's because of how that season ended, and all the things that happened in the months that followed, but the team is still as close as ever, according to Horning, a former senior associate athletics director at NC State who is now retired. "When you are on a team that wins something like a conference champion- ship, it bonds you together for a long time," Horning said. "Those are still some of my best friends in the world to this day." The Wolfpack defense stood tall when the 5-2 Pack went to Clemson, in a must- win game for both teams to stay in the hunt for the ACC title. State held the Tigers to just one touchdown and made the most famous opposing defensive stand in Death Valley history. In the final four minutes of the game, first-year coach Danny Ford tried to score the winning touchdown four different times from the 4-yard line, sending senior run- ning back Tracy Perry into the line on every single play. And four times the Wolfpack defense stopped him, with Green making the final three tackles. The Pack won the game 16- 13 and needed only to beat lowly Duke to win the school's seventh ACC title. First, however, the Wolfpack had to play its final two non-conference games, at South Carolina and at home against pow- erful Penn State. Bowls were lining up to invite the Wolfpack, back when confer- ences did not have automatic tie-ins and Defensive back Woodrow Wilson was one of four first-team All-ACC performers for NC State's 1979 league champs. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE Quarterback Scott Smith (No. 11) rushed for 451 yards and 13 touchdowns in 1979 to help create a balanced ground attack that filled the void left by the ACC's all-time leading rusher Ted Brown. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE