The NC State–South Carolina football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the NC State Wolfpack and South Carolina Gamecocks. South Carolina leads the series 27–26–4. The rivalry will be renewed in 2017.
Both schools were in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) until 1971; they met annually from 1923 to 1935 and 1956 to 1991 (they didn't meet in 1967), when South Carolina was invited to the SEC. Since South Carolina joined the SEC, they have met only three times.
1900: NC State (then known as the Agricultural & Mechanical College of North Carolina) and South Carolina first met in November 1900, playing two games against each other that month. South Carolina won both games by a combined score of 29 to 5.
1927: NC State and South Carolina played on Thanksgiving Day. NC State under head coach Gus Tebell crushed South Carolina, 34–0, to clinch a Southern Conference title.
1928–1932: NC State and South Carolina scheduled their annual game as the last game of the season for both teams.
1933: South Carolina defeated NC State, 14–0, as the undefeated Gamecocks won their first Southern Conference championship.
1957: NC State defeated South Carolina, 29–26, to clinch the Wolfpack's first ACC championship. Dick Christy scored all 29 points for NC State. South Carolina scored to tie the game at 26 with 1:09 left. NC State drove down the field, but South Carolina intercepted a pass and returned it 63 yards. The crowd in Columbia streamed onto the field, but the interception was negated by a pass interference call. The penalty gave NC State the ball at the 30-yard line with time for one more play. Christy then kicked a field goal to give NC State the victory and the conference championship.
1966: The two teams met for the first game in NC State's Carter–Finley Stadium. South Carolina spoiled the celebration in Raleigh, defeating the Wolfpack, 31–21.
1972: In their first homecoming game under head coach Lou Holtz, the Wolfpack defeated the Gamecocks, 42–24. NC State went on to win all four games against South Carolina during Holtz's tenure as head coach from 1972 to 1975.
1980: South Carolina's George Rogers rushed for 193 yards on 26 carries as the Gamecocks won, 30–10. After the game, South Carolina coach Jim Carlen said: "I have never seen a running back like Rogers. If he's not the best player in America, I'd like to see who is. George Rogers is All-World." Rogers went on to win the 1980 Heisman Trophy.
1989: Both teams came into the 1989 game ranked in the AP Poll. The Wolfpack won, 20–10. South Carolina quarterback Todd Ellis sustained an injury in the game that ended his collegiate football career.
1991: With South Carolina accepting an invitation to join the SEC, the Gamecocks dropped the annual match with the Wolfpack, and the 1991 game was the last regular annual meeting. NC State quarterback Geoff Bender passed for two touchdowns and ran for a third, as the #19-ranked Wolfpack won, 38–31. In its account of the game, the Associated Press noted that the game marked the marked the end of a rivalry: "In a football rivalry that began in 1900 and ended Saturday, North Carolina State's win brought the series with South Carolina to a 25–25–4 deadlock."
1999: The two teams met after a seven-year hiatus. The game was Lou Holtz's first as head coach of South Carolina after having been the head coach at NC State from 1972 to 1975. In a game played in torrential rain and high wind from a tropical storm, NC State spoiled Holtz's debut, defeating the Gamecocks, 10–0, giving them a 26–25–4 series lead.
