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| Philip Rivers at Carter-Finley Stadium in 2002. |
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BY TIM PEELER, © 2024
The contrails of the majestic flyover of four F-18 fighters had hardly settled into the wispy clouds over Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium and the echoes of “Taps” commemorating the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States had hardly faded into the Chesapeake Bay before NC State owned a 21-0 lead over Navy.
That game, played on Sept. 7, 2002, is the only other time the Wolfpack has ever visited the U.S. Naval Academy’s current football home, which opened in 1959 and is located just off campus in downtown Annapolis, Maryland. It’s the location of the Pack’s inaugural trip to the Military Bowl, as it faces East Carolina for the second time in postseason play.
The State-Navy game 22 years ago had more subplots than a Robert Ludlum spy novel.
There was the Pack’s return to Annapolis, where it had not won since 1920 as part of a four-game series scheduled to be played in consecutive years in the Maryland capital. The first of those games was canceled in 1918 due to both schools’ sending students and staff to Europe to fight in World War I and a Raleigh outbreak of the Spanish flu.
There was the matchup of a pair of legacy brothers, Craig and Ryan Moody, sons of former Wolfpack player and assistant coach Darrell Moody on the field for the first time since their high school says. Craig Moody was a senior safety for the Pack and Ryan Moody was Navy’s backup quarterback. They were both heavily involved on special teams.
Mostly, though, everyone wanted to see what the Wolfpack’s offense, led by record-setting quarterback Philip Rivers, would do against Navy’s defense, coordinated by former State player and assistant coach Buddy Green, who had just left head coach Chuck Amato’s staff as defensive coordinator to take the same position for Navy’s first-year coach Paul Johnson.
Green’s move was a bit of a head scratcher since he had played for the Wolfpack (1972-74) under Lou Holtz and been on the staff of four other head coaches: Bo Rein, Dick Sheridan, Mike O’Cain and Amato. Rumors that there might be some tensions between Amato, who had been Green’s position coach as a player, and twice his boss as the Wolfpack’s defensive coordinator and head coach were a natural storyline that both coaches denied the during the week of the game.
“Shoot, no,” Green said a few days before kickoff. “We’ve known each other a long time.”
Yet the outcome of the game, which State won 65-19 during its record-setting 11-3 season, might suggest otherwise, as the Wolfpack scored more points against a Division I-A team since a 76-0 victory over Wake Forest in 1908. (State had beaten Division I-AA Western Carolina in 1990 by a score of 67-0 and matched its 65 points in a win over Murray State in 2009.)
What made the blowout so complete was the fact that State owned a 21-0 lead before Navy ran its second offensive play, a swift lead led by Rivers’ rifle arm and special team’s play that included two blocked kicks by record-setting safety Terrence Holt against Navy’s left-footed punter. One of those kicks was recovered in the end zone for a touchdown by Craig Moody, the only score of his Wolfpack career.
Though he only threw 15 passes for 309 yards, it was one of the greatest games of Rivers’ career. Five of his 10 completions went for touchdowns, including 64- and 88-yard strikes to wide receiver Bryan Peterson. He threw another 52-yard pass to favorite receiver Jerricho Cotchery, but it only set up a touchdown.
Rivers became the first Wolfpack receiver to throw five scoring passes, a record that was later matched by Mike Glennon against Maryland in 2011 and Devin Leary against Charleston Southern in 2022. Rivers’ average of 30.9 yards per reception still stands as a single-game record.
He set the tone on the Wolfpack’s first possession by hitting Peterson for 64 yards 63 seconds into the game.
Navy fumbled the ensuing kickoff, Lamont Reid recovered the ball and he then scampered 30 yards to score the first special teams touchdown of the game.
On Navy’s next play, defensive lineman Jerrick Hall intercepted a bad pitch by Midshipman quarterback Craig Candeto to give the Pack’s offense the ball again. Rivers capped a short drive with an 18-yard pass to Sterling Hicks to give the Pack a 21-0 lead barely four minutes into the game.
Facing the Wolfpack defense was good practice for Candeto, a dual football-baseball star in Annapolis who later spent five years as a Navy pilot with Strike Fighter Squadron 106. He spent the bulk of his service training pilots to fly Super Hornets like the ones that flew over the stadium while he was a player.
Navy did put together a 73-yard drive for a touchdown, but Reid blocked the extra-point attempt. On its next possession, Navy suffered the fate as so many other teams 1999-2002: a blocked punt by Holt.
The senior safety, who blocked an ACC record 12 field goals and punts in his career, knocked the kick down and recovered it on the 12-yard line, setting up Rivers’ one-yard run, which helped him establish the school record of six touchdown responsibilities in a single game.
“Great players make great plays,” was about the only thing Amato could say after the game.
“I’ve never been around a quarterback as good as Philip when it comes to knowing the whole game, top to bottom,” Green said afterwards. “He’s just so smart. They just kicked our butts.”
Rivers, though he played just three quarters, was hardly done. His long pass to Cotchery set up an Austin Herbert field goal and he later hit tight end Sean Berton for the West Virginia transfer’s first touchdown with the Wolfpack.
State led 38-12 at halftime.
State scored on its first two possessions of the second half, the second of which was the 88-yard pass from Rivers to Peterson, still the fourth-longest scoring pass in school history. He gave way to freshman Jay Davis in the fourth quarter.
“I don’t know what I would do if I had to face Philip in a game,” said Amato, a long-time defensive coach at both NC State and Florida State. “I would probably give him a shot or something to make him sick for the weekend.
“I don’t know what else to do.”
On Navy’s next possession, Holt told his teammates “Get ready to scoop and score,” specifically calling one teammate: “I ain’t heard your name called much today, Moody. You better get ready.” On that play, Holt blocked the fourth punt of his career and Moody scored for the only time in his career, for the second special teams’ touchdown of the game.
Amato and Green shook hands at midfield after the game, and State’s coach said: “Buddy is a friend of mine, and we wished each other luck the rest of the way. He’s an NC State graduate, and he is one of us.
“It wasn’t NC State vs. him today, it was Navy vs. NC State.”
The scoring might not be as lively in today’s game against the Pirates, though it might be worth remembering that the rivalry’s three previous games played at neutral sites have all netted 66 or more points: The 1992 Peach Bowl, won by East Carolina 37-34; the 1996 regular-season finale in Charlotte, won by East Carolina 50-29; and the 2004 regular-season finale in Charlotte, won by the Wolfpack 52-14.
