Duke, NC Central, D2 Squads Contending For
“Best College Football Season In North Carolina”
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
The main idea is to celebrate excellence.
That certainly was the starting point, in 1991, when we bestowed the “Best College Football Season In North Carolina” honor on East Carolina. ECU had gone 11-1, rattling off 11 consecutive victories — including a now-legendary 37-34 victory over #21 NC State in the Peach Bowl — after a close, season-opening loss at Illinois.
With Bill Lewis as their head coach, Steve Logan as their offensive coordinator, Jeff Blake as their star quarterback, and Robert Jones as a future first-round National Football League pick at linebacker, the Pirates put together a sensational season that to this day still ranks as the best in their program’s history.
Among their other regular-season victories that year, with ECU then playing as an independent, were home wins against South Carolina and #23 Pittsburgh and road triumphs over #15 Syracuse, Cincinnati and Virginia Tech.
Relatively speaking, in a state that now has 33 NCAA programs scattered among the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), two Group of Five leagues, Division Two and Division Three, ECU’s 1991 campaign clearly was the “Best College Football Season In North Carolina” that year.
North Carolina (eight times) and Appalachian State (seven) have earned this just-for-fun title more often than any other school. The Mountaineers won it four times as a Football Championship Subdivision (FBS) program and three times as a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) program, most recently after their back-to-back Sun Belt Conference championships in 2018 and 2019.
Although a large majority of “Best College Football Season In North Carolina” honors have been captured by FBS programs, App State, North Carolina A&T and NC Central have won with championship-caliber FCS teams, and Lenoir-Rhyne and Winston-Salem State have won with title-winning Division Two squads.
This year, as the calendar turns to November, the top contenders once again include teams from the FBS, FCS and Division Two levels.
1. Johnson C Smith
Head Coach: Maurice Flowers (third season)
Location: Charlotte
Conference: CIAA
Classification: Division Two
Record: 8-0
National Ranking: #16 (D2)
Remaining Regular-Season Games: Fayetteville State (3-4), at Livingstone (5-3)
This is the most remarkable college football story in North Carolina, and at least for now, it’s not even close.
Third-year head coach Maurice Flowers has Johnson C Smith, a Charlotte-based university where he was once an all-conference quarterback himself, in position to post the greatest season in the history of the program. That is not even a slight exaggeration.
Now 8-0 with two regular-season games remaining, the Golden Bulls hadn’t started even 6-0 since 1969, which is the only time they’ve ever won the league title in the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA), despite JCSU being a football-playing member of that conference for almost 100 years now.
Earlier this season, Johnson C Smith became ranked in the Division Two coaches’ Top 25 for the first time in program history. The Golden Bulls debuted at #24 in early October and gradually have moved up to this week’s #16 ranking. They are 4-0 in CIAA play and the only HBCU program in the entire country that’s still undefeated.
Before his college playing days, Flowers was a star quarterback at East Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte back in the mid-1980s. Since his time as JCSU’s star quarterback, he has worked his way up the high school and college coaching ranks over the past 30 years.
In 2022, Flowers took over a Johnson C Smith program that had gone 16-43 over the previous six seasons. Under Flowers, the Golden Bulls went 2-7 in Year One, then jumped all the way to 7-4 — including a trip to the Florida Beach Bowl — in Year Two last season. Now Year Three under Flowers has at least a chance to the best season in the history of a program whose first game was played all the way back in 1892!
2. Duke
Head Coach: Manny Diaz (first season)
Location: Durham
Conference: ACC
Classification: Division One (Power Four)
Record: 6-2
National Ranking: none
Remaining Regular-Season Games: at #5 Miami (8-0), at NC State (4-4), Virginia Tech (5-3), at Wake Forest (4-4)
Duke has had only one 10-win season in its history, and only one Top 25 finish in the last 60-plus years, so if first-year coach Manny Diaz can achieve either or both of those things this season, his Blue Devils automatically would rank among the top contenders for this year’s “Best College Football Season In North Carolina” honor.
The Blue Devils accomplished all of those things under coach David Cutcliffe in 2013, when they finished 10-4 and #22 in the Associated Press poll. Lenoir-Rhyne, which went 13-2, won a conference championship and played in the Division Two national championship game under coach Mike Houston in 2013, shared the “BCFSINC” honor with the Devils that year.
Regardless of how the rest of this season goes for Duke, Diaz and his staff deserve an enormous amount of credit. Among the 17 football teams in the newly expanded ACC, no single unit — in any phase of the game — has prepared and executed game plans more efficiently than the Blue Devils’ defense, which has yielded only 18.6 points per game (second-best in the league) and created six turnovers in the team’s recent 28-27 home loss to #22 SMU.
3. Lenoir-Rhyne
Head Coach: Doug Socha (first season)
Location: Hickory
Conference: South Atlantic
Classification: Division Two
Record: 7-1
National Ranking: #12 (D2)
Remaining Regular-Season Games: Wingate (6-1), at Catawba (2-6)
Lenoir-Rhyne won or shared the “Best College Football Season In North Carolina” honor in both 2013 and 2023, and so far it appears the Bears have executed another smooth coaching transition, this time from Mike Jacobs (who has Mercer off to a 7-1 start and ranked in the FCS Top 25 this season) to Doug Socha, who had been a very successful NAIA head coach prior to his arrival in Hickory.
The Bears will resume their long-standing series with their South Atlantic Conference rival, the Wingate Bulldogs (6-1), at 1 pm Saturday at 8,500-seat Moretz Stadium. With victories in its final two regular-season games, Lenoir-Rhyne would play in the South Atlantic Conference championship game on Nov. 16.
4. NC Central
Head Coach: Trei Oliver (fifth season)
Location: Durham
Conference: MEAC
Classification: Division One (FCS)
Record: 6-2
National Ranking: #21 (FCS)
Remaining Regular-Season Games: at South Carolina State (5-2), Howard (3-5), at Delaware State (1-7)
NC Central captured the “Best College Football Season In North Carolina” title in 2022, when coach Trei Oliver’s squad finished 10-2, won the MEAC championship and then edged previously undefeated Jackson State in the Celebration Bowl, 41-34 in overtime, to claim the HBCU national championship.
Oliver, an all-conference defensive back and punter for the Eagles during his playing days (1994-97), is now in his sixth year (fifth season) as the head coach at his alma mater. The Eagles, who participated in the FCS playoffs for the first time in program history last year, are seeking their third consecutive MEAC championship (counting ties) under his leadership.
5. Wingate
Head Coach: Rashaan Jordan (first season)
Location: Wingate
Conference: South Atlantic
Classification: Division Two
Record: 6-1
National Ranking: none
Remaining Regular-Season Games: at #12 Lenoir-Rhyne (7-1), Newberry (3-4)
If Wingate, last week’s host for the Old North State Tailgate & Traveling Sports Circus, can win both of its remaining regular-season games — that would require an upset at #12 Lenoir-Rhyne this week — the Bulldogs would earn a trip to the South Atlantic Conference championship game under first-year head coach Rashaan Jordan.
The Bulldogs’ only South Atlantic titles came in 2010 and 2017 under coach Joe Reich, who is now the university’s athletic director. Jordan spent 18 years as Wingate’s defensive coordinator, including 11 under Reich (2013-23), before being promoted to head coach during this past offseason.