:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/57345597/1761539.0.jpg)
Will and I took a bye week along with the football team, HOWEVA, we’ve still got a podcast for you this week. This is a special Notre Dame week guest edition from Technician alums James Curle and Matt Lail, long-time friends who went together to the 2003 Gator Bowl against the Irish. Here they share their thoughts about that experience and the 2002 season in general.
They were recent NC State grads at the time, and I was in the middle of my sophomore year at State. When I try to think back I’m disappointed about how little I actually remember about the game, though I do recall how amazing the drive down was (James and Matt also talked about this), how cold it was in the upper deck, and how that Dantonio Burnette hit dictated the outcome of the contest.
Not yet jaded to any long-term degree, I thought that was gonna be the new normal for NC State football—y’know, beating Notre Dame, winning 11 games, no big deal—but it didn’t turn out that way. Still, that was an incredible high point, a great breakthrough of sorts, and man it was cold and windy in the upper deck.
That weather did help me coerce my parents to buy me and my sister extremely overpriced Gator Bowl sweatshirts, so that was a bonus. If I could have found Curle at the game to buy my under-aged self a beer, that would have been an extra bonus, but alas.
As always you can stream the podcast below or find it on iTunes.