A pair of teams that finished dab smack in the middle of their conferences will play in the AdvoCare Independence Bowl on December 26th, as the North Carolina Tar Heels try to beat the NCAA football betting lines against the Missouri Tigers.
It has been a rough two seasons for the Tar Heels. They had a slew of off the field problems that took them from a team that was expected to contend for the ACC title two years ago to one that had to dismiss Head Coach Butch Davis just before the start of the season. That being said, UNC has done a great job just qualifying for a bowl game in these two seasons, and it is going to hope for another victory like it got last year in the Music City Bowl in a wild game essentially on the road against the Tennessee Volunteers.
Gone are basically all of the major players on offense from last year's team, including QB TJ Yates, who now finds himself as a starting quarterback for a playoff team, the Houston Texans in the NFL. QB Bryn Renner did a nice job this season, completing 68.8 percent of his passes for 2,769 yards and 23 TDs against 12 picks. RB Giovani Bernard also had a fantastic year taking over in the backfield. He had 1,222 yards and averaged a solid 5.4 yards per carry, accounting for 13 rushing TDs and 14 trips to the end zone overall.
Missouri had to play a disgustingly difficult schedule to start off the season, so when it started at 3-4, maybe just wrote it off as a team that was going to just be stuck in the bottom of the Big XII. That being said, the Tigers were able to come back and beat the Texas A&M Aggies, Texas Longhorns, Texas Tech Red Raiders, and Kansas Jayhawks in the last month and a half of the season to make this bowl game, and there were a lot of teams out there that were happy to not see the 'Zou on its bowl schedule.
QB James Franklin did it all for the Tigers this year. He threw for 2,740 yards and rushed for 829 more, and if not for a shoddy offensive line that got him sacked a ton, especially early in the season, he would have clearly been a 1,000 yard rusher. RB Henry Josey rushed for 1,168 yards in spite of the fact that he only averaged about 12 carries per game.
Knowing that they are on fire, Bookmaker Sportsbook had no choice but to make the Tigers 3.5 point favorites at the open for the Independence Bowl. That number has since risen to -5. The 'total' is set at 53.
