For the first time in 71 years, North Carolina has entered game week for a major bowl.
The No. 13 Tar Heels will face No. 5 Texas A&M on Saturday at 8 pm seven decades after the last time UNC was in such a game, in which it lost to Rice in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 1, 1950.
That was Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice’s last game at Carolina, and while UNC has fielded some excellent teams since, they were always snubbed from participating in major bowls until now. Carolina has been to 31 bowls since Justice left, with seven trips to the Gator Bowl and five trips to the Peach Bowl as the most prestigious of those games.
So, this is a big deal for the program.
“It's such an honor to be chosen,” UNC Coach Mack Brown said last week. “You always want to have a good match-up when you're in a bowl game and we got one of the best in the country. It's feasible that A&M could have been chosen in the top four…
“Our guys are very excited to be where we were two years ago to now, getting to play in a January 2 bowl in Miami, in the Orange Bowl, is really exciting for us.”
UNC will face an Aggies team that just missed making the College Football Playoff. At 8-1, A&M’s only loss was 52-24 at Alabama in its second game of the season. Since, the Aggies have won seven consecutive contests, including victories over Florida, which lost a competitive game to No. 1 Alabama in the SEC championship last week, and at 6-4 Auburn by 11 points.
Brown fully appreciates the challenge the Tar Heels are facing. A&M is led by former Florida State coach Jumbo Fisher, who lost his last two meetings versus UNC when he was with the Seminoles in 2010 and 2016. Both of those games were in Tallahassee.
In three seasons at A&M, Fisher is 25-10 winning both of the Aggies’ bowl games: Last year, the Ags defeated Oklahoma State in the Texas Bowl and the year before they clobbered NC State in the Gator Bowl.
In seven seasons as Florida State’s head coach, Fisher led the Seminoles to a pair of Orange Bowls, a Rose Bowl as part of the CFP, and the 2013 national championship. Four of his FSU teams finished ranked in the top 10 and six were ranked.
As for this week, COVID restrictions have eliminated typical pre-bowl activities. Carolina’s plan is to fly to Miami on Dec. 31 and return the morning after the game. The players still get the same gifts they would have if COVID wasn’t a thing, and they will get Orange Bowl rings. But this will be treated more like a true road game, and perhaps having just played an important contest at Hard Rock Stadium will help the Heels.
They already know the layout, so nothing about this trip will be foreign to anyone on the team. It’s a bowl game but won’t feel much like one, so perhaps the distractions that sometimes hurt teams in bowls won’t affect the Tar Heels.
“As far as coming back to Miami, we wouldn't be in this game unless we had beaten Miami, and Miami was the No. 10 team in the country,” Brown said, referring to UNC’s 62-26 rout of the Hurricanes on Dec. 12. “The guys will enjoy preparation for the game. They've already been there. They know the stadium and we'll have tremendous respect for the opponent, so it'll be fun for us.”
The team also gets nearly two weeks - beginning a week ago - to get replacements for Chazz Surratt, Michael Carter, Javonte WIlliams and Dyami Brown ready to go. The quartet opted out of the game to focus on their NFL futures. This only means increased opportunities for other worthy Tar Heels, says sophomore quarterback Sam Howell.
“It definitely is exciting,” he said. “In both of those rooms, in the receiver and the running back room, we have a lot of really good players that really haven't had a lot of opportunities to play just because the starters have been so good. So yeah, it's a great opportunity for those guys to step up and we really don't know exactly who's going to be fulfilling those spots.
“So, there's a lot of room for competition going on these next few weeks, so it's definitely very exciting. And it kind of gives a little preview of next year, what it’s gonna be like without some of these guys on our offense. So, it definitely is exciting for those younger guys to have a chance to compete and show us what they’ve got.”
So, Orange Bowl week is here. UNC hasn’t been in a game like this since Harry S. Truman was president, the Andrews Sisters were churning out No. 1 hits, Twelve O’Clock High was the top movie, only nine percent of American homes had television sets, and a full decade before Alaska and Hawaii officially became U.S. states.
This is a monumental event for the program, opt outs or not.
“I'm really excited not only that we got here, the publicity that it will give us for recruiting, but also the challenge of playing such a great team because our guys need to see what it's like to be the fifth team in the country,” Brown said. “And we'll get that experience.”
The game will air on ESPN.
