North Carolina and Baylor are non-traditional football programs. The Russell Athletic Bowl is as much about them getting the respect they deserve.
The North Carolina Tar Heels and Baylor Bears like to score. Who doesn’t?
That was their way through the course of the season. Baylor averaged 48.0 points per game and North Carolina averaged 40.9. They slung the ball around and put up highlight plays and points quickly and with gusto.
Of course, the narrative on these teams is always the same: It is a system. Any good defense can topple it. They did not face anyone. They just padded their stats against bad teams.
As Baylor and North Carolina prepare to meet in the Russell Athletic Bowl, it still feels like both programs are searching for respect and building up their program to something the nation can respect in a very real way.
The Tar Heels, for example, went 11-2 with an ACC Championship Game loss to the Clemson Tigers. Yet there was no talk of even making the College Football Playoff should they have won the ACC Championship Game even with one season-opening loss. They even fell behind Florida State in the pecking order for a New Years’ Six Bowl Game.
There is still some talk the Tar Heels do not belong on the same field with an injury-depleted Bears team.
Baylor too is fending off this talk. The team has built itself on a system, but has not had much national success in big games. Baylor failed to get to the College Football Playoff last year, somewhat controversially, and then fell to Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl.
As Orlando fans know, Baylor’s other Big 12 championship team lost to UCF in the Fiesta Bowl.
During this bowl run for the Bears since 2010, Baylor has gone 2-3 in bowl games with wins over Washington in the 2011 Alamo Bowl and UCLA in the Holiday Bowl.
Baylor has experienced a lot of success, but has not quite built itself into a complete power.
“We have a long way to go to get where we want to get respect on a national level,” Baylor coach Art Briles said. “The respect deal. It’s kind of like I’ve told the players. I don’t want respect for winning the Heisman in 2011. I don’t want respect for winning the conference championship in 13 and 14. I want this team to have respect. I want those guys in that locker room to earn respect for themselves and for what they’ve done. This is all about renewed respect for our football team. There is only one way to get it: to play really well when you have an opportunity to get it.”
Baylor has gained sort of a “poor, Baylor” reputation toward the end of the season with injuries to starting quarterbacks Seth Russell and Jarret Stidham. Third-string quarterback Chris Johnson will get the start in today’s game.
The Bears though will still face plenty of injury problems. Starting wide receiver Corey Coleman (74 receptions, 1,363 yards and 20 touchdowns) and starting running back Shock Linwood (1,362 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns) will not play. Baylor is down a lot of its offensive weapons. Briles said the Bears went back to some very basic things in preparation for the bowl game.
The Bears’ system will be tested.
And tested by a pretty good North Carolina team.
Marquise Williams is a strong offensive player along with Elijah Hood. Both players are capable of rushing the ball and Williams is one of the best dual-threat quarterbacks in the nation.
Defensively, North Carolina is not much of a pushover either.
The Tar Heels do give up big plays and can give up a lot of points — they are particularly not strong against the run which should be a focus for the Bears in this game — but they are also very physical and fast. They can make plenty of plays.
Junior defensive end Mikey Bart recorded 6.5 sacks. Senior linebacker Shakeel Rashad had 7.5 tackles for a loss, a team-high 110 tackles and two interceptions along with several pass break ups and quarterback hits. This is a defense that is opportunistic and disruptive.
The Tar Heels put together a season that deserved some notice and respect after surprising many to win their division.
“They have a complete football team,” Briles said. “When you get to bowl games at this level that’s what you are going to mix and match all the time — two really good football teams playing at a really high level. They knocked off 11 straight throughout their season and that is really impressive. It’s hard to win every week.”
North Carolina and its senior-laden team proved it can win. Larry Fedora will have some work to build off the success of this season.
Briles has largely done that at Baylor. His team has reached a consistent level, having made a bowl game every year since the 2010 season.
He said it takes 8-10 years to become an established program. He said after trying to hold things together for three years at the historically horrid Baylor, he is on about year five of that rebuild. And he has met tons of success.
This game and this team has given him a new challenge with a new quarterback and then tons of injuries to key players. Baylor found its way to this game still (the second pick among Big 12 bowl games).
The program’s future is very much going to be on display in this afternoon’s game.
Against a season North Carolina team, that is probably going to be too much for them to get through.
But both programs should be able to show they are worthy of national respect both in making this bowl game and in playing the game.
Prediction: North Carolina 38, Baylor 24
