Camp Countdown: Wake Stuns UNC 14-13, 1970
7/31/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
So you've done the reading on Hopkins and Russell. Now here's a taste of what it was like when both of the stellar Deacons put on top notch performance on the gridiron.
Watch Highlights from the game here.
Wake Stuns UNC With 12 Seconds Left
By Whitey Kelley, Originally published in the Charlotte Observer, 10/25/1970Nobody's gonna believe this one.
Wake Forest people will be pinching themselves all week long to make sure that it really happened ... that they weren't dreaming. North Carolina partisans will be shaking their heads in disbelief, trying to figure out how it happened.
What actually happened was that 190-pound Larry Hopkins jammed his 5-10 body into the North Carolina end zone with just 12 seconds left in the football game Saturday to stun the Tar Heels 14-13.
Kicking specialist Tracy Lounsbury, a Winston-Salem native, actually provided the winning margin when he kicked the 14th point, touching off one of the wildest celebrations the usually placid Baptists have ever engaged in.
They had every reason to go wild.
Just three minutes earlier the Deacons were 92 long yards from victory, seemingly mired in a hopeless cause on the short end of a 13-7 score at their own eight yard line.
Somebody forget to get that message to Hopkins, quarterback Larry Russell and the rest of the Deacon offensive cast.
The crowd of 30,500 was in a constant state of uproar during the next three minutes as the Deacons escaped from several impossible situations.
Two plays after Don McCauley, who led the North Carolina cause with 125 yards in 31 carries, punted dead on the Wake Forest eight yard line, Russell lost two yards back to the six.
With a third and 12 situation facing him, the slippery quarterback somehow connected with a 13-yard pass to Steve Bowden for a first down at the Wake 19. The North Carolina crowd wasn't in much of a sweat ... yet.
Two plays later the panic began to set in. Hopkins thundered 39 yards down to the North Carolina 38 on a dive play back to the weak side of the formation. Except for John Bunting's tackle from behind, the fullback would have gone all the way.
Just one minute and 40 seconds showed on the clock when Hopkins was belted to the turf.
Russell then escaped a hard North Carolina rush on two occasions to complete a pass of 11 yards to Gary Winrow and another 11-yarder to Gary Johnson.
Only 58 seconds remained the clock when Johnson bounced out of bounds at the Tar Hell seven.
After Hopkins got two, Russell faded to pass, dropped the ball and dribbled it several yards before regaining possession. He then turned the disaster into a two yard gain with 39 seconds remaining.
Russell would have won applause from the great Houdini for his escape capers on that particular play.
The only sensible thing to do was to give the ball to Hopkins who hit over the right side. For an instant he seemed to be stopped, then he jammed his way into the end zone.
The maneuver started the first round of Deacon celebrations and Lounsbury gave the home folks even more to blow their minds over when kicked his 14th straight extra point of the season. It may be that he will never kick a more important one because North Carolina's Ken Craven had missed on his second try, his first misfire in 17 attempts this season.
The Deacons thus owned their fourth straight victory for the first time since 1967 and Deacon followers were ready to acknowledge that. Cal Stoll was, in truth, a miracle worker.
Other Camp Countdown Video Highlights:
Deacons Down Auburn at Groves Stadium, 1979
Deacons Defeat Georgia in Athens, 1979
Day 30: Wake Forest Football, 1889
Day 29: Assistant Coach Beattie Feathers
Day 28: Wake Forest in Japan, 1974
Day 25: Deacon History 101
Day 24: 'M' Non-Lettermen
Day 23: WF Stuns Undefeated Vols
Day 22: Larry Tearry's Poetry
Day 21: Bill Barnes Just Walked In
Day 18: John Mackovic, A Barberton Boy
Day 17: The Jay Venuto Movie
Day 16: Kenny Duckett Finds Four-Leaf Clovers in Astroturf
Day 15: Conquering Athens, 1979
Day 14: Deacons Rally to Down Auburn at Groves, 1979
Day 11: 1959 Football Media Guide
Day 10: Scenes from 1948
Day 9: UVA Triumph and Tragedy
Day 8: "Hoppy"