UNC can’t let Texas A&M control the ball in the Orange Bowl
Even if No. 14 North Carolina headed into Saturday’s Orange Bowl with all of its offensive players who opted out, it would still face the same challenge against No. 5 Texas A&M.
The Aggies are good at playing keep away. So much so that their average time of possession —35:06, which ranks third in the nation — is almost 10 minutes per game more than their opponents. It’s not that their running game is other-worldly — the Tar Heels actually averaged more yards per game at 249 to 202. Texas A&M doesn’t have a tempo-based offense predicated on big plays. It takes pride in being methodical.
“I think they had the ball 40-something minutes against Tennessee and Tennessee had 37 offensive plays,” UNC coach Mack Brown told reporters. “You look up and the game is over and you haven’t touched the ball. So you have to make sure that you make something out of every possession because they’re going to be a physically dominating, time-of-possession dominating team that takes care of the ball.”
There’s no way to predict how smoothly the Tar Heels’ offense will operate after each of their 1,000-yard-gaining skill players — running backs Michael Carter and Javonte Williams and receiver Dyami Brown — announced they would skip the bowl to begin NFL draft preparation. So it’s up to their defense to make sure Texas A&M doesn’t control the ball all game.
The key to ensuring that doesn’t happen is stopping what the Aggies do best — converting on third down. Texas A&M ranked second nationally only to Alabama in converting on 56.7% of its third down plays.
“The biggest problem is trying to get off the field because A&M stays on the field and keeps the ball,” Brown said. “It’s because they’re third and 2, they’re third and 1, they’re third and 3 because they do so well on first and second down. They’re doing what you need to do to win football games, and that’s what makes it so tough to beat them.”
Texas A&M sophomore running back Isaiah Spiller needs just 68 yards to reach 2,000 for his career. Spiller leads the team in rushing this season with 986 yards. UNC defensive coordinator Jay Bateman said teams that loaded up against the run, daring A&M to throw, have been beaten by quarterback Kellen Mond.
“We’ve got a real challenge on our hands,” Bateman said. “Obviously we’re going to have to do a really good job up front, that’s where it all starts, and from there we’ll have to cover them. They’re going to force you to make competitive throws and play competitive coverage, and that’s going to be the key in the game.”
Some Carolina players compared the A&M offensive line to Notre Dame. The Irish were arguably the best unit its front seven on defense faced this season.
UNC linebacker Tomon Fox believes the Heels have grown since their loss to the Irish as their younger players like freshmen defensive linemen Kevin Hester Jr., and Myles Murphy have continued to mature.
“There’s not any drop-off so I think that helps the team as a whole stay fresh being able to spread the workload throughout most of the people on the D-line instead of keeping one person or two people in the whole entire game,” Fox said. “It just makes you play harder throughout all four quarters.”
Carolina will try to compensate for the loss of leading tackler Chazz Surratt, who was the lone defensive player to opt out of the game. Sophomore linebacker Eugene Asante will start in Surratt’s place and Bateman said he’s athletic enough to cover a lot of the same ground that Surratt did.
“Everybody on our defense, everybody in our defensive staff, is extremely confident in Eugene,” Bateman said. “Not just in this game but in the next however many years we have him. We’re very confident in Eugene and he should be very confident in himself. He’s really worked hard to get himself to this position.”
This story was originally published January 2, 2021 at 9:12 AM with the headline "UNC can’t let Texas A&M control the ball in the Orange Bowl."