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Baylor Football: Bears without Coleman, Linwood, Stidham for Russell Athletic Bowl

By Patrick Schmidt

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The Baylor Bears will be severely depleted on offense for the Russell Athletic Bowl against North Carolina as Corey Coleman, Shock Linwood and Jarrett Stidham will all miss the game due to injury.

A game between Baylor and the North Carolina Tar Heels figured to be one of the more offensive-oriented bowl games of the year with points coming in bunches.

However, the Baylor offense is figuratively and literally broken and will have to play the Russell Athletic Bowl against the ACC runners-up without Biletnikoff Award winner Corey Coleman, leading rusher Shock Linwood and quarterback Jarrett Stidham.

So points could be at a premium for Baylor since they won’t have Coleman who had 74 receptions for 1,363 yards and 20 touchdowns, but his sports hernia suffered against Oklahoma will mean we won’t see him again until next year when he’s an NFL rookie.

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He should be a first round pick in the 2016 NFL Draft but we’ll wait and see if he’s healthy enough to go through the workouts at the combine in February.

Linwood ran for 1,329 yards and 10 touchdowns so there goes the threat of the run game with the passing game hamstrung.

Stidham, a true freshman who originally replaced Seth Russell in the starting lineup, and threw six touchdowns in three starts before he was lost to a broken bone in his ankle during the Oklahoma State game.

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There was hope he could return for the bowl game, but that’s been dashed and Chris Johnson and Lynx Hawthorne will try to carry the once-potent Bears offense against a rejuvenated North Carolina defense under first-year coordinator Gene Chizik.

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