After the news Tuesday that NC State would be reprising a series with UConn, I got to thinking about one of the best (and forgotten) finishes in NC State football history. It was 2003. Neither team had a good record, and the game was not televised. If you weren't in the building, then you didn't see that game. Which is a shame, because it was college football at it's finest and most ridiculous.
And it was a gross game. Philip Rivers, who was on his way to an incredible senior season, was only average. T.A. McLendon got shut down. The Huskies erased a two-touchdown deficit in the fourth quarter to tie the game, then had an opportunity in the final minute to put themselves in position for a game-winning field goal.
UConn tied the score at 24 with 1:29 remaining, got a quick stop, and had the ball around midfield when quarterback Dan Orlovsky did this:
When Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay hit the goal line, there were about five seconds left, so this was basically a walk-off pick-six. This one is still vivid to me. There are certain plays that never leave, good or bad, and this one is up there.
It was a strange day. The weather was dreary. NC State was not nearly as methodical offensively as we'd come to expect. It was pretty much an off day all around on the NC State side. That team needed the offense to pick up it's subpar defense every week, and this was one occasion where that didn't happen.
We lived, though. It's hard to explain that emotion, the one that comes with perfectly ridiculous sports happenings. The great thing about sports is nothing has to make sense. Every game has an outcome, but there are no restrictions on the absurdity of the path to the result.
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