North Carolina Tar Heels: Looking Back at 33 Bowl Games
- 2015 Russell Athletic Bowl
The 2015 North Carolina Tar Heels shook off an opening game loss to South Carolina to eventually pick their way through an undefeated season otherwise. This included a rare domination of the ACC Coastal division schedule.
This was a season where Marquise Williams was supposed to have his time to shine, but the staff kept finding reasons to play backup Mitch Trubisky despite the damage done to Williams’ offensive rhythm. Their decisions only made any sense once Trubisky took over as the starter the next year. Running back Elijah Hood enjoyed his best season with the Heels.
The Tar Heels got very close to a playoff berth. If the referees had not missed (or invented) an onside kick call in the ACC Championship Game, the Heels would had a small chance to tie the game with a touchdown and two point conversion and then an overtime. Would the committee have acquiesced? It didn’t seem that way then.
The consolation was taking on Baylor in Orlando. Baylor had suffered injuries to its quarterback, but nobody really accounted for that. It was supposed to be a matchup of high powered throwing teams. That is apparently what we prepared for.
Baylor had other ideas. Noting that our 4-3 defense still relied on undermanned lineman, Baylor took all those Texas lineman it recruits and the 400 pound tight end on their roster and proceeded to run something like the single wing with a receiver getting the ball at the snap on a lot of plays. It was a complete change of philosophy and caught the defense off guard.
Meanwhile, it took time for the Tar Heels to get their acts together on offense. Ultimately there just was not enough time to catch up.