North Carolina vs. Cincinnati, 2013 Belk Bowl: Heels sprint past Bearcats

Tyler Lockett’s listed weight. The Kansas State junior receiver might be, pound for pound, the best player in college football, and if he returns for his senior season (and one assumes he will), KSU fans have only his minimal pounds to thank for it.

Lockett is in no way of typical NFL size, and his name doesn’t exactly come up in mock-Draft discussions, but he might be the strongest combination of speed and route-running in college football right now.

Update:

Hurst is considered an NFL prospect, and our own Mocking the Draft ranks him as the 50th-best player in the upcoming draft, which pegs him as a mid-to-late second round draft pick. He is also ranked as the sixth-best offensive tackle in the class by Mocking the Draft.

Cincinnati tried to make it a game with two of the next three touchdowns, but were stopped short near the goal-line with about ten minutes left in the game. That allowed North Carolina to run down clock and put the game out of reach.

Box Score Hero: T.J. Logan. The running back carried 15 times for 77 yards while also returning three kicks for 120 yards and a touchdown.

Today is Belk day. North Carolina knows that Belkening is not to be taken for granted; it is earned, and after having been down, they are proud to be where they are:

Ryan Switzer isn’t interested in your guarantees.

The freshman let multiple defenders pass him by -- one even briefly touched him as he jogged past -- before hauling in the ball and bursting up the middle for the 86-yard touchdown, cementing his place in the record books with his fifth punt return touchdown of the season:

Cincinnati started the year with a blowout win over a Big Ten opponent and a blowout loss to another -- neither of whom made bowl games. After the win to Purdue and loss to Illinois, the Bearcats won eight of their next nine games, with their only loss coming to South Florida (who was winless at the time). Cincinnati had an outside shot at the AAC title and a BCS bowl bid in the last week of the season, but a loss to Louisville ended those hopes.

North Carolina had a very poor start to the year, opening 1-5 with a blowout loss to East Carolina. The Tar Heels then went on a roll, defeating Boston College and Pitt during a five-game winning streak that brought them bowl eligibility. In the season finale, they lost by two to Duke, giving their fierce rivals the division title.

When the bowl pairings come out, my father, who will probably watch about four of them, peruses the list, just looking at rankings and records. He knows there are better ways to do it (ahem), but in fairness, it’s not like most websites are showing F/+ rankings next to team names, and he doesn’t care enough to look them up. (He’s what you would call a casual fan, at best.)

On Monday after the bowl pairings were announced, he remarked to me just how different a lot of the records were in bowl games this year; he also mentioned that it probably meant the bowls weren’t going to be very good. I scoffed and tried to tell him how awesome bowls always are, but that didn’t get me very far.

The Cincinnati Bearcats won the Belk Bowl last year and return as underdogs here against the North Carolina Tar Heels for the 2013 edition.

The total has gone OVER in five of Cincinnati’s last seven games overall and in three of North Carolina’s last four. The total has also gone OVER in four out of UNC’s last five bowl games, according to the Belk Bowl betting odds history. And with two top-25 passing attacks on display, this game could end up being a shootout as well. Cincinnati finished with 313.8 yards per game, 15th best in the FBS this year, while UNC’s passing attack finished 23rd in the nation with 286.3 passing yards per game.

The ACC had 11 bowl-eligible teams this season, with Pitt tying for both the worst overall record (6-6, with North Carolina and Syracuse) and conference record (3-5, with Maryland) among them. The Panthers did beat three other bowl teams this season, with an early-year win over Duke and late-season victories over Notre Dame and Syracuse.

Ralph Friedgen’s final game as Maryland’s head coach came in the 2010 Military Bowl -- the game was also the Terrapins’ last bowl game. Athletic director Kevin Anderson made the change from Friedgen to Randy Edsall, saying he wanted the program to go from “good to great,” and three years later, the Terps get to go to the same place.

The Belk Bowl, formerly the Meineke Car Care Bowl, and before that the Continental Tire Bowl, will be played for the 12th time this year. Traditionally, this game has matched up teams from the ACC and Big East (now the AAC), though Navy did crash the party in 2006.

The ACC holds a 6-5 record in this postseason game, the most recent of those wins coming 2011.