On the last day of the regular season, both the North Carolina Tar Heels and Baylor Bears could've played their way into the New Year's Six.
Instead, both were beaten and were relegated to the Russell Athletic Bowl, where they'll be facing off in what could be one of the higher scoring games of the bowl season.
College Football Odds at BookMaker.eu
Baylor Bears -2
North Carolina Tar Heels +2
Over/Under 69.5
ODDS ANALYSIS
All of the traffic in this game has been slanted towards the Tar Heels. North Carolina opened up as a short dog in Orlando's second bowl game, but that has since flipped around completely.
Once set at -2, Baylor has dropped all the way to +3 as of the publication of this article, a massive line movement by any standards.
The total of 69.5 has come down just a tick to 68.5.
KEY MISMATCH
Theoretically, nothing is going right at the moment for Baylor's offense. Corey Coleman is out for the Russell Athletic Bowl after undergoing sports hernia surgery just before Christmas. On top of that, Chris Johnson is going to have to start at quarterback, the third option after Seth Russell and Jarrett Stidham.
Yes, Johnson is just 15-of-38 for 220 yards in his career, and he doesn’t have a receiver who hauled in 20 touchdown catches, but he still has K.D. Cannon and Jay Lee to throw to and Shock Linwood and Johnny Jefferson who can run all day long.
North Carolina's big problem this year came against the run, allowing a stunning 217.2 yards per game. We really wonder if Linwood and Jefferson are in for massive days.
KEY STAT
8.9 - The number of penalties the Bears are committing per game this year. Baylor's offense covers up a lot of mistakes, but 77.2 yards of penalties is pretty damning, especially against a team against North Carolina you don't want to give extra opportunities to.
BETTING ANGLE
The Tar Heels were awfully unfortunate not to cover the ACC Championship Game against Clemson at +6.5, but they're still 6-1 ATS in their last seven games played against teams with winning records.
ANALYSIS AND ODDS PREDICTION
Art Briles is still one of the best coaches in America, and he's had four weeks to try to devise a game plan for his third-string quarterback. This is a lot different than having just a few days to try to get ready for TCU and Texas, and we think it's going to show on the field.
The public is heavily backing North Carolina, but we just don't see it. Sure, the Tar Heels should theoretically be able to score, but let's not forget that Baylor hasn't surrendered more than 44 in a game this year.
Is 44 really going to be enough to hold down the Bears? We're not all that sure. We think this game though, screams for the Tar Heels to be overrated.
Don't be stunned if the rushing game with Linwood and Jefferson helps keep Marquise Williams off the field, and if that happens, this could end up being a mild upset which feels like a stunning shocker. This is where we'll learn if UNC was really a product of its paper thin schedule or not, and we think we're going to see that it was.
Baylor 39, North Carolina 26
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