The game was over, finished. Goodbye 1957 season, goodbye ACC championship, goodbye rare chance to outshine Everett Case’s basketball program.

South Carolina star Alex Hawkins had intercepted a desperation pass by N.C. State at his own 15 yard line. He raced up the sideline, then cut to the middle of the field.

Back in those days players went both ways, playing defense and offense, and Hawkins was exhausted. Never that fast to begin with, the second team All-ACC running back was caught from behind after racing 68 yards.

The final gun sounded as Hawkins fell. Exultant fans streamed onto the field below grey skies at Carolina Stadium in Columbia. The Gamecocks had apparently rallied to earn a tie, scoring more points against N.C. State, the ACC’s stingiest defense, than any opponent all year.

“That was one of the best football games that we ever played in, for sure,” says Hawkins, who went on to a 10-year pro career with Baltimore and Atlanta (1959-68). “It had all the drama in the world. It kept going back and forth, back and forth.”

Fortunately for N.C. State, and for coach Earle Edwards’ first recruiting class, the seesaw battle tottered one more time, turning finality into mere prologue.

The resulting 29-26 victory assured ACC immortality for Wolfpack running back Dick Christy -- who scored every point for N.C. State -- and an ACC title for a team that played seven of its 10 games on the road.

Today's Wolfpack, regrouping under Tom O'Brien, will honor the '57 squad, along with the 1967 unit that became the first in school history to win nine games, at Saturday’s N.C. State-Clemson game at Carter-Finley Stadium.

“That (1957) team was a miracle,” says Pat Peppler, the Pack’s offensive line coach at the time. N.C. State had only 13 full scholarships and seven partial grants-in-aid, even as Clemson coach Frank Howard had well over 100 players on stipend, according to Peppler. “We had some pretty good players, but you never had enough,” he says. “We didn’t get the biggest guys in the world, but they were quick off the ball. Just a bunch of good players.”

The Wolfpack certainly made the most of its talent, earning five of 22 spots on the '57 all-conference squad. That tied Duke for the most in the ACC.

Center Jim Oddo and Christy, the 1957 ACC player of the year, made first team. Tackle Darrell Dess, guard Bill Rearick, and back Dick Hunter made second team. (Also on the line that season was tackle Amedeo “Dick” DeAngelis, owner of Amedeo’s, the homey Italian restaurant on Western Boulevard in Raleigh.)

The Christy-Hunter tandem, nicknamed the “Pony Backfield,” was featured on the cover of N.C. State’s 1957 football media guide. In a bit of prescience nearly a half-century before the advent of legalized gambling in North Carolina, the guide announced, “We’re Bettin’ on the Ponies!”

Hawkins, the ’58 ACC player of the year, teamed with King Dixon, another second team all-conference selection, in South Carolina’s backfield. They were good, but Hawkins says the Wolfpack duo clearly was the ACC’s best.

N.C. State focused on spreading the field and getting the ball to its backs. Hunter was the shiftier of the pair. “I had to be,” he says. “I never had that power, so every time I got hit I went backwards.” Reflecting elusiveness and a good portion of speed, Hunter led the ACC in punt return yardage in ’57.

Asked if he or Christy was faster, Hunter says: “Depends on how far you had to run. In 100 yards he was faster. In 40 to 50, I was faster.”

Hunter, now a Durham resident, was N.C. State’s best blocker out of the backfield despite weighing about 155 pounds. “That’s one thing I enjoyed,” he says.

Hunter also was a standout free safety, and tied for second on the team in passes intercepted. On offense he trailed only Christy among the Wolfpack in rushing yardage and pass receiving, and even tied for second on the team in touchdown passes thrown.

But Christy was the star, “the ideal back,” Peppler says, possessing good size for the era at about 185 pounds, along with “great quickness and great toughness.” Hunter got the job of leading the way for his All-America running mate, who paced the Pack in rushing yardage (626), pass receiving (10 for 211 yards), and touchdown passes caught (4).

“Christy was good in all phases of the game,” Hawkins says admiringly. (A third round NFL draft pick in 1958, Christy went on to a five-year pro career, once making all-pro. He died in a 1966 auto accident.)

Thanks largely to his performance against the Gamecocks, Christy led the ACC in scoring in 1957. He had four touchdowns that November afternoon in Columbia, and kicked two extra points as N.C. State rallied from an early 19-6 deficit. Still, after South Carolina forged a late tie at 26-26, and Hawkins made his interception, it appeared Christy’s efforts had not been enough.

But, in the dramatic but improbable manner of a corny movie, even as Hawkins set sail an official dropped a flag to signal defensive interference. Since a game cannot end on a defensive penalty, the field was cleared of celebrants and N.C. State given one more play from the USC 30-yard line.

Enter the hero, daring greatly.

Christy quickly convinced Edwards to let him try a 46-yard field goal. The senior had toyed with kicking field goals in practice – back then, there was no room on the roster for a player who only kicked – but he was wildly inaccurate. Christy had never attempted a field goal in a game, either; when he heard what was afoot Peppler, the assistant coach, exclaimed, “He’ll never make it!”

Bad prediction. “The ball was low, and it seemed to hang in the heavy air,” Jack Briebart wrote in Raleigh’s News and Observer. “But it reached its mark, and it was accurate.”

On the road, with the ACC title on the line, stretching his personal boundaries to unimagined limits, Christy had just turned in the greatest clutch performance in ACC football history.

Much to Hawkins’ chagrin. “You talk about bummers, next to Super Bowl III,” says the ex-Colt, “when the Jets beat the Colts, that was the worst moment in my football career.”

Shortly after the Wolfpack won, word came that Duke had frittered away a lead against North Carolina and lost at home before 40,000 fans. N.C. State was the ACC champion.

But at the very moment of football’s greatest triumph the fruits of victory were snatched away, courtesy of N.C. State’s preeminent basketball program.

Coach Everett Case had won 9 of 10 Southern Conference and ACC titles since arriving at Raleigh for the 1947 season. Case’s team fell off the pace in ’57 as Frank McGuire’s Tar Heels went undefeated and won the NCAA basketball title. Worse, basketball recruiting violations caused the entire N.C. State athletics program to incur a stiff four-year NCAA probation.

The blanket ban meant even N.C. State football was ineligible for postseason competition. “I thought it stunk,” Hunter says of the restriction. “It was tough,” agrees Peppler, who had a long career as a coach and later an NFL execucive. “We couldn’t say much because basketball had been the dominant sport.”

The ACC’s automatic berth in the Orange Bowl went instead to Duke, which lost decisively to fourth-ranked Oklahoma. “It would have been fun to try” playing the Sooners, Peppler says. “It would have given us a little national recognition just to be there.”

In N.C. State and ACC circles, the recognition endures.