UNC Football: Will Tar Heels end up in New Year’s Six Bowl?

We take a look at where the UNC Football program is projected to play their bowl game for the 2020 season according to CBS

The UNC Football program is now ranked No. 5 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll following their win over Virginia Tech to move to 3-0 on the year.

While it’s still early on in the season, Saturday’s win was really the first time UNC has looked impressive despite almost giving up the lead twice in the game. However, the offense was explosive and got it done to keep the Tar Heels unbeaten.

With the win, the Tar Heels also stayed put in their latest bowl projection on CBS Sports. Analyst Jerry Palm released his latest projections on Sunday and he has kept the Tar Heels in a New Year’s Six bowl, which would be very intriguing.

Palm has the Tar Heels facing off against Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas on December 30th. This isn’t UNC’s goal as they have their eyes on a spot in the College Football Playoff but if they can’t reach that, then a NY Six bowl is the next best thing.

The interesting part about these projections is that Palm still has Miami ahead of the Tar Heels in his projection, despite the Hurricanes losing on the road to Clemson. He has them slotted against Georgia in the Orange Bowl. As for Oklahoma State, they are currently one of three teams still unbeaten in the Big 12, matching up with current unbeaten North Carolina.

While Palm has the Tar Heels in the Cotton Bowl, ESPN is thinking a little differently. In their updated projections, Kyle Bonagura has the Tar Heels in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl against Kentucky and Mark Schlabach has them going up against Arizona State in the SDCCU Holiday Bowl in San Diego.

A lot can (and will) change as the season goes on, especially with the Big Ten and PAC-12 set to start play over the next few weeks but this is a good measuring stick early on in this season.

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