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Holiday Bowl in San Diego, Ca
When: Wednesday, December 28 at 8:00 pm ET
TV: Fox
#15 Oregon Ducks (9-3) vs. North Carolina Tar Heels (9-4)
Powre Five football, Pac-12 vs. the ACC.
Vegas line/spread: Oregon by 13 (over/under 75.5)
Oregon is the biggest favorite in the bowl season by quite a bit, will they live up to it? So far the line has held pretty steady, down a bit from two touchdowns early, while the over/under has steadily moved up a total of 5 1/2 points by game day. Seems the public senses a lot of scoring from these offenses.
Strength power rating: #14 Oregon 46, #59 North Carolina 33
Best/Worst removed: Oregon 47-32
Turnover corrected: Oregon 44-34
Our Strength power rating concurs with the oddsmakers, as it normally does but in this case it's pretty much on the dot—or very close, it's closer to 13 points than 14 but we could round the scores either way. When each teams high and low game rating is thrown out Oregon is a 15 point favorite (due to dumping the opener against Georgia). In a different "correction" we remove the random influence of turnovers which have benefitted Oregon a lot; this narrows the spread to 10 points.
| Game-comparisons | win % | vs. -14 Spread |
| Oregon | 83% | 51.3% |
| North Carolina | 17% | 48.7% |
It all comes down to the distribution of game scores. Our game-comparison system heavily favors Oregon, of course, since it's based on the Strength power rating. Against the 14 point spread, if games had no real outliers, you'd expect Oregon to fall a bit short since Strength has Oregon by 13. Instead, the tipping point is 15 points for a 50/50 split and they cover in a majority—barely—against a two-touchdown spread. A lot of this is due to the Georgia game, the big outlier in Oregon's season.
When Oregon has the ball
| Oregon scoring offense(adj): #9 |
North Carolina scoring defense(adj): #98 |
| Oregon rushing offense(raw): #14 |
North Carolina rushing defense(raw): #83 |
| Oregon passing offense(raw): #15 | North Carolina passing defense(raw): #121 |
Oregon's offense has a huge edge here as a top ten offense going up against a defense that is barely in the top 100. The Ducks are pretty balanced. Bo Nix has been a success for the Ducks, with 3,389 yards and 27 TDs with just 6 picks. He's also run for over 500 net yards. UNC's defense leaves a lot to be desired and they'll have their hands full, though they're used to that as the UNC offense runs at breakneck speed, leaving the defense to fend for themselves.
Worse, the Tar Heels will be without three starting defensive backs. You can't get much worse than #121 but they definitely will be approaching #131 on bowl day.
When North Carolina has the ball
| North Carolina scoring offense(adj): #27 |
Oregon scoring defense(adj): #42 |
| North Carolina rushing offense(raw): #63 |
Oregon rushing defense(raw): #32 |
| North Carolina passing offense(raw): #9 | Oregon passing defense(raw): #106 |
North Carolina's offense is solid but not great; they score a lot because they run fast, creating a lot of drives per game. Oregon's defense is middling for the Power Five, so the Tar Heels will be able to score. UNC is a pass-centric team under QB Drake Maye (4,115 yards, 35: 7). Like Nix he's a runner, with over 650 net yards on the ground (#1 on the team).
The Ducks have a pass defense problem that the Tar Heels can exploit for sure, and on top of that three defensive starters are opting out of the bowl game or transferring, making things even worse.
On the other hand, UNC top receiver Josh Downs has over 1,000 yards but he's opting out of the bowl game himself; Maye has several other targets but Downs has twice as many catches as the next guy.
Special Teams Rank (per ESPN FPI): Oregon: #95 North Carolina: #22
North Carolina's special teams outrank Oregons which could help them close the gap.
Oregon's season (9-3) • SOS: #34
Non-conf losses: 1 • Home losses: 1
Record vs. bowl-eligible teams: 4-3
Record vs. top 25 teams: 2-3
- @#1 Georgia 3-49
- Eastern Washington 70-14
- Brigham Young 41-20
- @Washington St 44-41
- Stanford 45-27
- @Arizona 49-22
- #18 UCLA 45-30
- @California 42-24
- @Colorado 49-10
- #12 Washington 34-37
- #8 Utah 20-17
- @#14 Oregon St 34-38
Oregon's season started in the worst possible way, a 49-3 beatdown vs. Georgia in Atlanta. They took out their frustrations on Eastern Washington and didn't look back, racking up 8 straight wins before a stunning home loss to Washington broke the streak. After beating top ten Utah they had the path to the Pac-12 title game clear but fell to rival Oregon State. In all they played 5 top 25 teams and went 2-3, and were 4-3 against the bowl field. Other than the first game they didn't have a terrible outing, but the 1-2 finish is a concern.
North Carolina's season (9-4) • SOS: #67
Non-conf losses: 1 • Home losses: 3
Record vs. bowl-eligible teams: 4-3
Record vs. top 25 teams: 0-3
- Florida A&M 56-24
- @Appalachian St 63-61
- @Georgia St 35-28
- #21 Notre Dame 32-45
- Virginia Tech 41-10
- @Miami FL 27-24
- @Duke 38-35
- Pittsburgh 42-24
- @Virginia 31-28
- @Wake Forest 36-34
- Georgia Tech 17-21
- #23 North Carolina St 27-30 2OT
- =#7 Clemson 10-39
North Carolina was a team that snuck up on people this year. The only news they made with their first three tepid wins was the 63-61 shootout with Appalachian State, and the loss to Notre Dame took them off the radar. The Tar Heels quietly assembled a 6-game winning streak though and were 9-1 with Playoff hopes still alive. The shocking Georgia Tech home loss took care of that, and they lost in two overtimes to rival NC State. Clemson added the injury to the insult with a 39-10 drubbing. A great season, no doubt, but even when they were winning it was clear the defense was a problem that would catch up to them.
Key Injuries / opt-outs
This game is another one filled to the brim with opt-outs and transfer portal players. I list only the major players (starters and key backups). First UNC:
- Leading receiver Josh Downs (1,042 yards, 11 TDs)
- Starting CB Storm Duck (3 INT)
- Starting CB Tony Grimes
- Starting DB Cam'Ron Kelly
And for the Ducks:
- #4 receiver Dont'e Thornton (366 yds)
- Starting DB Christian Gonzales (4 int)
- Starting LB Noah Sewell
- Starting LB DJ Johnson
- backup LB Justin Flowe
- backup LB Jackson LaDuke
Psychology/Motivation - Some speculative factors that may come into play during the game:
- Favorite: Oregon has become a huge favorite, probably due to the opt-out situation which hit UNC harder. But even before that the Ducks were about a 10 point favorite. Will they get overconfident? Will UNC feel disrespected? Who knows what goes on in players minds when much of their team is entering the transfer portal or opting out.
- Location: San Diego is obviously a neutral field location but Oregon is at least in the same time zone wheres North Carolina is three time zones away. I'd use this as a tiebreaker in a dead even game maybe, nothing more.
- Coaching: No head coach changes, though Oregon's OC Kenny Dillingham was hired as ASU's head coach. And speaking of coaching, doesn't it seems more likely that Mack Brown knows how to motivate a team in a bowl game than first-year Oregon coach Dan Lanning? Or is Lanning's youth a positive here?
- Motivation: Oregon was 10-2 at this point last year but played for the Pac-12 title. Whenever players bolt, you have to question the overall team's commitment to the bowl game. For North Carolina, they improved greatly on their 6-6 season last year but they have even more players bolting.
- Momentum: Neither team has momentum and that's adding to the lack of motivation. Both not long ago were thinking of bigger things than the Holiday Bowl but late losses scrubbed those plans.
North Carolina played worse than Oregon and lost all three games, but Oregon's general expectations are higher so losing two of the three at the end—taking them out of the national title picture, then the Pac-12 title picture—hits harder. A win over Oregon might mean something for North Carolina but the converse means nothing to Oregon.
Final analysis
Oregon's offense should do well both running and passing the ball. North Carolina's offense has to pass, partly because that's what they're good at but also it's what Oregon isn't good at defending. That does leave Oregon a chance to bottle up that opening, if they can get a sustained pass rush and disrupt UNC QB Drake Maye. North Carolina does give up around 3 sacks per game, mostly because they pass so often but it's still a lot. Unfortunately for the Ducks they're #123 in sacks so it's unlikely they can use the pressure route to cripple the Tar Heel passing game.
Who got the worst of the opt-outs and transfers? Probably North Carolina, as they lost their leading receiver and three defensive starters, while Oregon lost their #4 receiver and two (now three) defensive starters (plus a few more backups we didn't list). The list might still grow so we'll update as needed, but right now it looks like the offenses might get a boost. Both teams will still be pass-happy, maybe both missing a target, but also with defenders missing on the other side. Oregon's LB situation looks pretty dim now with two starters and two 2nd-stringers out.
So what we end up with is a shootout. North Carolina thrives on shootouts. With neither team getting many stops it could be whoever has the ball last. North Carolina will try to play very fast and Oregon's defense will tire. North Carolina's defense always plays tired. Oregon's defense is a lot better, the whole team is a lot better, but they stepped down from the Playoff to the Pac-12 title to the Holiday Bowl against North Carolina, a team more famous for basketball, and they're about two-touchdown favorites and they're thinking this is going to be easy even without all their players opting out. North Carolina will just play its game, and all their players are opting out too which results in enough chaos for a North Carolina upset win.
Prediction: North Carolina 45, Oregon 42
More previews, odds, and predictions: View the complete 2022-2023 bowl game schedule.
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