100 Days, 100 Reasons G6 Football Matters

Down 34-17 with 8:41 left. Three touchdowns. Wide right. Purple everywhere.

N.C. State led 34-17 in the fourth quarter of the 24th Peach Bowl on New Year’s Day 1992. Safety Mike Reid had just intercepted Jeff Blake on the Wolfpack five-yard line. The stadium scoreboard said what everyone in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium already knew: East Carolina was finished.

“I remember thinking, ‘I can’t believe it’s going to come to this,’” said Jerry Leach, an ECU alumnus watching from the top corner of the stands.

Then Tim Kilpatrick shanked a 10-yard punt out of bounds on the N.C. State 32. In six plays, the Pirates were in the end zone. The clock read 7:26.

Three minutes later, they scored again. Less than three minutes after that, they scored again — all of it through the air. East Carolina ran one ground play in the entire fourth-quarter comeback: a quarterback sneak for a first down. Everything else was Jeff Blake throwing to anyone open, and nobody was more open than tight end Luke Fisher.

Blake and Fisher connected on a 22-yard touchdown with 1:32 remaining. East Carolina 37, N.C. State 34.

The Wolfpack drove to the ECU 31-yard line with six seconds left. Coach Dick Sheridan chose the field goal over the Hail Mary. Damon Hartman lined up a 49-yarder to tie. ECU noseguard Zaim Cunmulaj and defensive tackle Derek Taylor had just sacked quarterback Terry Jordan for a 17-yard loss two plays earlier, pushing the kick to the edge of Hartman’s range.

The kick sailed wide right. The clock hit zero.

“The field was engulfed in a purple sea of East Carolina fans, many digging up the grass as souvenirs of a crowning achievement,” wrote the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Darryl Maxie.

Furman Bisher, the Journal’s legendary sports editor, described the scene: “The East Carolina sideline went wild in all manners of ways that should have been frozen in time. Players shamelessly danced together, hardly cotillion style, but arm in arm and stepping high. The ECU flag was held fluttering above it all. Players and coaches who had no idea that they were doing it kissed each other.”

Stadium security director Terri Brennan watched the fans pour onto the field and made her call: “We’ll just let them take it.”

The Hate Bowl

East Carolina and N.C. State had not played football in four years. After ECU’s 32-14 victory in Raleigh in 1987, fans stormed the field, tore down both goal posts and ripped apart a fence. A security officer suffered cheekbone and eye injuries. N.C. State canceled the series.

The Peach Bowl brought them back together — No. 12 ECU against No. 21 N.C. State, the first time the bowl had staged a New Year’s Day game. Bisher called it “The Hate Bowl” and described the crowd: “There must not have been anybody at home in North Carolina. The stadium parking lot was filled with ‘First in Flight’ license tags.”

The joke among fans of both teams: “Last one out of North Carolina, turn out the lights!”

A Peach Bowl-record 59,322 fans packed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. ECU fans arrived early, waving rubber sabres and chanting. N.C. State, the older program — football since 1892 to ECU’s 1932 — had the pedigree. ECU had the edge.

“It was almost fate for us to play N.C. State,” Fisher said. “It was the icing on the cake.”

Three Fingers

Jeff Blake threw four touchdown passes in the 1992 Peach Bowl — a bowl record. He threw the last two without the use of his thumb.

Blake’s right hand started cramping late in the third quarter. Trainers massaged his fingers, but the thumb locked up and would not respond. He kept throwing.

“I was throwing with three fingers,” Blake said. “On that last touchdown, my hand was cramping all over the place.”

He finished 31 of 51 for 378 yards with four touchdowns and three interceptions. He also ran for a fourth-quarter score. Only East Carolina had wanted him as a quarterback out of high school. He finished seventh in the Heisman voting that season after throwing for 3,073 yards.

Fisher caught 12 passes for 144 yards, both Peach Bowl records. Billy Ray Haynes, N.C. State’s leading tackler, paid Blake a direct compliment: “He’s got a rifle, that’s for sure. If there’s any room between you and the receiver, he’ll stick it in there.”

Terry Jordan, the Wolfpack quarterback, put it more simply: “He carries that team.”

We Believe

East Carolina was an independent in 1991 — no conference, no automatic bowl tie-in, no safety net. The Pirates had not played in a bowl game since 1978. A controversial loss at Illinois, where ECU was penalized for excessive celebration after recovering an onside kick, could have derailed the season before it started. Instead, the Pirates won 11 straight — beating Syracuse, South Carolina, Pittsburgh, Southern Mississippi and Virginia Tech along the way.

As the wins piled up, “I Believe” and “We Believe” started appearing on T-shirts and signs around Greenville. It became a stadium chant, then a team motto. A banner at the Peach Bowl read: “ECU 11:1 I believe.”

“We looked for the ‘We Believe’ every game,” said Robert Jones, the Pirates’ All-America linebacker.

When ECU trailed by 17 in the fourth quarter and the comeback began, the chant came back.

“All you could hear was ‘We Believe!’” Leach said. “I think the State fans were in shock.”

ECU offensive coordinator Steve Logan told his players they needed one score to change the math: “I told the kids we needed just one touchdown, no matter how long it takes. Once they got that touchdown, they looked at the scoreboard and said, ‘Hey, guess what! We’re close enough to do it now.’”

Sheridan, whose Wolfpack failed to earn a 10th win, could not believe 34 points had not been enough. “I wouldn’t have thought 34 points would’ve been enough,” he said.

Why It Matters

East Carolina finished the 1991 season 11-1 and ranked ninth in the final AP poll — the first top-10 ranking in program history. Five players from that team were drafted into the NFL: Blake, Fisher, Jones, defensive back Chris Hall and wide receiver Dion Johnson. Bill Lewis was named AFCA Coach of the Year.

Then Lewis left for Georgia Tech. Steve Logan succeeded him and became a fixture. Blake went to the NFL. The program kept going.

But the Peach Bowl is the moment that endures. Not the record, not the ranking, not the coaching hires. The moment. Down 17 with eight minutes left, against a hated rival that had refused to play them, in the biggest game in program history — and they came back.

“When you’re down by 17, some teams get down on themselves and don’t play to their potential,” Jones said. “For us, we were so accustomed to being down that we adapted and just kept playing. We learned how to overcome adversity.”

Bisher, watching the celebration, looked across the field and saw what the game meant: “The Little Guys beat the Big Guys. Or maybe it should be, the Country Boys beat the City Slickers.”

Across the stadium, a fan had a piece of the end zone in his hands. Twenty-five years later, it had disintegrated. The story had not.

“It was the season that put ECU on the map,” Blake said. “That season was the catalyst for what Pirate football is today.”

They told you it didn’t matter. Here are 100 reasons it does.