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The final bowling match before the National College Football Playoffs will be at the same venue as the title game when No.5 Texas A&M meets No.13 North Carolina at Orange. Bowl Saturday night at Hard Rock Stadium.
It’s an opportunity for two programs making their New Years debut in the college football playoff era. It’s also a reunion of two of the six active head coaches who have won national championships, with both coaches winning their titles at previous stops (Jimbo Fisher at Florida State in 2013 and Mack Brown in Texas in 2005). Brown has a lot of history against Texas A&M and is a well-known opponent to Aggie fans thanks to his 10-4 record against the school in his time in Texas, while Fisher remains winless against North Carolina ( 0-2) of his time in Florida State.
With championship-caliber coaches and successful seasons in 2020, Texas A&M and North Carolina hope to use the Orange Bowl as a building block to take the next step in 2021. Reaching the New Years Six for the first time is awesome. , but the fight for the conference championship and the challenge of closing the gap with their respective conference lords demands another step in the development of the program that could be in the cards on Saturday night.
Storylines
Texas A&M: After finishing the season with seven straight wins for the first time since 1998, Texas A&M ended the regular season feeling like one of the top four teams in the country. The Aggies’ only loss came in Alabama and he beat SEC champion East Florida, so when the selection committee kept Texas A&M in 5th place (the spot it held on the top ranking on Nov. 24 until in the final ranking on Dec 20) there was a lot of gripe around College Station. Notre Dame had just lost to Clemson in the ACC Championship game and Ohio State struggled to secure the win over Northwestern, so the argument was either that the Aggies had a better loss and a better finish than the Irish or were more deserving than the Buckeyes thanks to more wins. against a more difficult and longer schedule.
Saturday night Texas A&M is the perfect time to win while keeping that chip on their shoulder by 2021. Instead of facing a rematch with Alabama, the Aggies have a more manageable opponent in North Carolina , a team that edged out No.11 Indiana and No.12 Coastal Carolina thanks to the connection between the ACC and the Orange Bowl. There is a common opponent here with Notre Dame, so if Texas A&M beats the Tar Heels more than the Fighting Irish (14 points), there is a perfect talking point for the offseason that they deserved more via ownership. always popular transitive. Adding even more sauce to a potential build-up win would be a bit of history, as Kellen Mond is two touchdowns in total from breaking Johnny Manziel’s school record for touchdown responsibility. Mond is already the all-time leader of Texas A&M in passing yards, touchdowns, passes completed and total offense, but his 92 total touchdowns (71 assists, 21 rushing) remain second behind Manziel’s 93 (63 assists, 30 on the ground) at the head of the bowl. Game.
North Carolina: A record-breaking year for North Carolina football will end with a formation, particularly in attack, which doesn’t quite look like the group that helped set school offensive records in 2020. The Tar Heels will be without the running back Javonte Williams (1,140 rushing yards, 305 receiving yards, 22 total touchdowns), running back Michael Carter (1,245 rushing yards, 267 receiving yards, 11 total touchdowns) and wide receiver Dyami Brown (1,099 receiving yards , eight touchdowns) like all three, along with all-star linebacker Chazz Surratt, opted out of the bowling game to prepare for the next NFL draft. Mack Brown tried to pass it off as a development that would hurt the team in the short term against Texas A&M, but help the program in the long term thanks to the opportunity it offers for Tar Heels saves, but when you lose a total of 4000 yards of offense, it will be a major setback. This is a program with very little experience in the big bowl games that mostly hung its hat on the Gator Bowl and Peach Bowl wins for its best playoff performances. It seems Brown is hoping the process of giving young players a taste of a great bowling game against an elite opponent will better prepare them for the next trip, but whether it works that way will be determined by whether the Tar Heels are one of the best teams in the ACC again in 2021 and beyond.
Information display
Game: Orange bowl
Dated: Saturday January 2 | Time8 p.m. ET
Location: Hard Rock Stadium – Miami Gardens, Florida
TV: ESPN | Direct: fuboTV (Try for free)
Orange Bowl prediction, pick
Last Chances:
Texas A&M Aggies -7.5
I understand North Carolina is missing a ton here and their young defense will have their hands full with one of the best offensive lines in the country for Texas A&M, but for the last time I checked that Sam Howell was still playing in this game and it means the backdoor. will be absolutely open. I think bettors are also made aware of this fact considering how little the spread has grown with the news of all opt-outs, so give me Howell and the underdog Tar Heels to make it exciting in Q4. Picks: North Carolina +7.5 | Texas A&M 31, North Carolina 25
So who wins Texas A&M over North Carolina? And what crucial X factor is causing one side of the gap to hit hard? Visit SportsLine now to see which way you have to jump everywhere, all from the expert who has 13-3 in his last 16 spread picks involving UNC.
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