Duke and North Carolina will always capture the nation’s attention in basketball, and North Carolina and N.C. State perhaps even more so, in any sport, within the boundaries of the Triangle and the state. The ACC moves the needle, annually and perpetually, its stature grounded in decades — generations — of mutual angst, bile and occasionally respect.
This Saturday, when other regional rivals will collide in every corner of the state, is just as good in its own way. Perhaps even better, because it’s a day for getting even, on the field and in the office — opportunities that do not come along often, leading to results savored and remembered for years, not to mention the occasional brawl.
If those big ACC games are the meat in the North Carolina college sports sandwich, weekends like this make everything taste good:
— N.C. State at East Carolina is the vinegar.
— North Carolina at App State is the slaw.
— The Aggie-Eagle Classic is the mayonnaise, if only because it’s sponsored by a brand of that condiment this year and played at the home of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.
These schools don’t have to play these games, although N.C. Central and N.C A&T have shared a conference at various points in their histories. They choose to play these in-state grudge matches, to go on the road to hostile environments because they know how much the games matter.
N.C. State has won only once, ever, in Greenville, although most of the games in the series have been played in Raleigh. Beating up on ACC teams is as much a part of the ECU football tradition as rousing the “No Quarter” flag before the fourth quarter, at one point ripping off six wins in a row under Ruffin McNeill and Scottie Montgomery. A win over N.C. State in 2016 was a low point of Dave Doeren’s tenure with the Wolfpack and perhaps the highest point of Montgomery’s lamentably brief time in Greenville.
The Pirates also hung 70 on North Carolina in 2014 a year after winning in Chapel Hill, but the Tar Heels are preoccupied with another in-state team that most recently won on their field. App State is only two years removed from a win at Kenan Stadium, and has been an early betting favorite for Saturday’s matchup. If East Carolina has been on a five-decade climb up the college football ladder, App State’s rise has come since the historic 2007 win at Michigan when it was still an FCS team, although it still put plenty of dents in Wake Forest before making the jump.
Now a Sun Belt powerhouse, the Mountaineers are a frequent fringe Top-25 team and nothing to be trifled with. The atmosphere in Boone will be every bit as fervent as in Greenville in its own way, and North Carolina will have its hands full. So will the Wolfpack when it goes there for the first time in three years, with the return game in Raleigh in 2026.
Both of those games are at noon, to start the day. The third big nonconference rivalry will finish it. There was a time, long ago in the CIAA and more recently in the MEAC, when the Aggie-Eagle Classic was a conference game. The Aggies have moved on to the Big South (on their way to the Colonial), but this is still the biggest game on both schools’ schedules, and no less so this year for being the opener and in Bank of America Stadium.
Of all these games, it is the most frequently and regularly played and the most important to its alumni and fans. On any date, it’s a highlight of the season. On this Saturday, it’s the perfect way to finish the day.
Bigger conference? So what. In Boone and Greenville and Charlotte, resources will matter not. Fans and alumni so often excluded from the ACC conversation will get their say on equal terms — and as often than not, they’ve come out on top. These games won’t help decide a conference championship, but their outcomes will linger until the next time these teams meet, whenever that may be.
We’ll always have Duke and UNC and N.C. State (as long as the ACC doesn’t implode). We don’t always have days like this, when the outcome of a single game can resonate for years upon years.
