The Music City Bowl on Thursday features North Carolina and Tennessee with the Tar Heels a 2-point favorite in college football odds.
This game should be very competitive in college football betting lines with North Carolina favored but with Tennessee having the home crowd edge.
Sold Out
The Music City Bowl is sold out with many of the fans set to cheer for Tennessee. The Volunteers did well to make it to a bowl game at all this season. They lost six of their first eight games but rallied to win their last four under first-year head coach Derek Dooley. Tennessee is going to have a big edge in crowd support but the Tar Heels are still the favorite in college football betting lines at the Sbg global sportsbook.
Points Should be Plentiful
Both teams should be scoring a lot of points in this game. North Carolina’s defense was not that great this season and it is going to be worse in the bowl game without starting linebacker Bruce Carter and offensive lineman Alan Pelc. Tennessee has been much better offensively with Tyler Bray at quarterback. Bray threw 12 touchdown passes in their four-game winning streak. Tauren Poole ran for an average of 91.5 yards in the last four games with five TDs. On the other side, North Carolina quarterback T.J. Yates was second in the ACC with 265.3 passing yards per game. He led the conference with a 67.6 completion percentage. North Carolina was actually a team that went under the total more often than they went over but Tennessee was a huge over team as 9 of their 12 games went over the total.
Game Facts
North Carolina and Tennessee have met 17 times but not since 1961 and never in a bowl game. Tennessee has not beaten an ACC team since 1999.
The Volunteers have played a lot of games in their home state this season. This will be the 10th game for the Vols in Tennessee as they had seven home games plus games at Memphis and Vanderbilt. Since this is a virtual road game for North Carolina it is important to note that the Tar Heels were 3-2 against the college football odds on the road this season.