UNC Football: Tar Heels projected to play in New Year’s Six Game

The UNC Football program is projected to play in a New Year’s Six Bowl according to the latest preseason projections by CBS.

This will be a very unique college football season here in 2020 to say the least. While the Big Ten and PAC-12 decided to opt out, along with a few other conferences, the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big XII, and Southeastern Conference have decided to go on and play.

Even with the Big Ten and PAC-12 opting out, the College Football Playoff committee revealed they will go on as scheduled with their rankings and host the three games for the playoff. College football will also hold some big New Year’s Six Games in 2021 as well.

For the North Carolina Tar Heels, they enter the second year of Mack Brown’s second stint as head coach and they are doing it with high expectations.

UNC went 7-6 last season but showed improvement overall including on offense under freshman quarterback Sam Howell. The true freshman set a few different records both for the program and the ACC as he and UNC’s dynamic offense made some big strides.

The Tar Heels will return most of their starters on offense and defense including linebacker Chazz Surratt, the runner-up for ACC Defensive Player of the Year. After winning their first bowl game since 2013, the Tar Heels are hoping to reach a bigger bowl game in 2020 and make some noise on the national stage.

With just over two weeks until the opener, CBS Sports released their latest bowl projections for the 2020 season. They projected every major bowl game and have the Tar Heels playing in a New Year’s Six Bowl against Florida. The projections feature the Tar Heels and Gators matching up in the Orange Bowl, a matchup that many fans would love to see. Here is what they wrote on that game:

"Larry Wahl, the Orange Bowl’s vice president of communications, told 247Sports in an email this summer that the ACC champ (or next highest ranked if the champion is in the playoff) will be pitted against the highest-ranked available non-champion from the Big Ten, SEC or Notre Dame. This was before the Big Ten and Pac-12 postponed their seasons and the Irish joined the ACC for this fall only. So this proposed Tar Heels vs. Gators matchup makes a lot of sense."

Florida won last season’s Orange Bowl against ACC foe Virginia and are expected to contend for one of those four spots in the College Football Playoff. It’s safe to say the Gators will be a good team in 2020 and could present a big challenge for UNC.

Still, having the opportunity to play against a program like Florida in the Orange Bowl would be huge and something the Tar Heels wouldn’t turn down.

For more on the UNC Football program, please check back with Keeping It Heel.