1979 NC State Wolfpack football team

The 1979 NC State Wolfpack football team represented the North Carolina State Wolfpack during the 1979 NCAA Division I-A football season. The team's head coach was Bo Rein. NC State has been a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) since the league's inception in 1953. The Wolfpack played its home games in 1979 at Carter–Finley Stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina, which has been NC State football's home stadium since 1966. NC State won the 1979 ACC Championship with a record of 5–1 in conference play. Despite the conference championship, the Wolfpack did not receive a bowl invitation, while two teams they defeated, Clemson and Wake Forest, did. As of 2018, the 1979 North Carolina State team is the most recent bowl-eligible Power Five conference champion to not receive an invitation.

Rein accepted the head coaching position at LSU on November 30, 1979. He never coached a game in Baton Rouge, perishing January 10, 1980 when the private aircraft he was traveling in flew well off course and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia. Ironically, the doomed plane flew over Raleigh and Carter-Finley Stadium shortly before crashing.