The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1137844
JULY 2019 ■ 151 ■ PACK PAST schools and bowls negotiated terms weeks before the season ended. The Gamecocks, featuring future Heis- man Trophy winner George Rogers, held on for a 30-28 victory in Columbia, S.C., with Rogers running for 217 yards. Several bowls attended that game, thinking either of those two former ACC foes would be likely candidates for postseason play. Then, on Nov. 10, came the biggest what-if and biggest disappointment in Wolfpack home history. Everyone attend- ing the Penn State-NC State game knew the outcome would determine what postseason bowl either team would attend. Throughout the contest, the two defenses ruled. Penn State managed only 274 total yards, with 56 coming on a long pass play that set up the Nittany Lions' first field goal. Meanwhile, the Wolfpack had com- piled just 185 yards heading into its final drive. Smith directed a brilliant 14-play, 72- yard drive that ate up more than six min- utes off the clock and scored the game's only touchdown with 1:18 to play. All the Pack defense — which played perhaps its best game of the season to that point — had to do was continue to stop the Penn State offense. And, thanks to a 14- yard sack by Etheridge that pushed Penn State back to its 27-yard line, it seemingly had. On third-and-27, Penn State quarter- back Dayle Tate threw a Hail Mary that sailed incomplete with 18 seconds to play. On the next play, Tate found Terry Ra- dowsky, who had never caught a pass in a college game, open on a straight fly pat- tern. He hauled in a 36-yard, clock-stop- ping reception over Wilson at the NC State 37-yard line with eight seconds to play. Tate took two more chances to get his team closer to the end zone, but missed on a sideline pass on first down and then on an over-the-middle pass to Radowsky on second-and-10. "If he catches that ball, the game is over, because they couldn't stop the clock," said Chuck Amato, NC State's defensive coor- dinator at the time. To this day, Wolfpack fans wonder how home-team clock keeper Harold Wall man- aged to stop the clock one click away from victory as the pass sailed over Radowsky's head. Instead of reading triple zeroes, how- ever, one second clung to the scoreboard, like the last leaf of autumn. The stadium fell quiet when Paterno called his last timeout and quickly rushed kick Herb Menhardt out for his third field goal of the day. He carefully put his black rubber tee on the Wolfpack's 44-yard line for the longest kick of his career. The crowd was even more quiet when Menhardt's kick Kasey A Stone Interior Designer General Contractor 336.456.8828 WWW.CLERESTORYDESIGN.COM www.systemscontractors.com Since 1977, Systems Contractors, Inc. has provided Industrial & Commercial HVAC Services throughout the Southeast. Call us today to learn more. 336.763.8969 • Commercial and Industrial HVAC • Design/Build • Piping • Custom Metal Fabrication • Service and Maintenance Contracts • Custom AHU's and Packaged Plants • Engineering Services • Energy Studies Q U A L I T Y • E F F I C I E N C Y • I N N O V AT I O N