Liberty Football Stifles MTSU in Blowout Homecoming Victory
Despite a few offensive mistakes, Liberty football still handily dismantled the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders in a 41-13 victory Oct. 9.
After deferring to begin the game, Liberty’s defense wasted no time in demonstrating its competence. A stop by the Liberty defense on fourth-and-1 resulted in a turnover on downs, allowing quarterback Malik Willis to begin his first drive in enemy territory.
Three plays after gaining possession, Liberty struck first with a 35-yard touchdown reception by DeMario Douglas, foreshadowing what would be a long night for MTSU.
To the delight of the Flames, MTSU punted on the following possession. Trouble occurred for Liberty on this drive, however, when Willis threw his first interception this season. On the next play, Liberty’s defense responded when Robert Rahimi intercepted MTSU quarterback Chase Cunningham’s pass.
The teams traded punts for the next two drives until the Flames found a spark near the end of the first quarter. A 41-yard pass by Willis to Douglas brought the offense into the red zone before a 5-yard touchdown reception by Jerome Jackson doubled Liberty’s lead to 14 points with 13 seconds left in the quarter.
MTSU’s next drive began slowly and carried into the second quarter before the Blue Raiders punted yet again. In 10 plays, Liberty worked its way to the end zone, adding to the score to make it 21-0.
After receiving the ball with about half of the second quarter remaining, MTSU finally found its stride. Led mainly by the arm of Cunningham, the Blue Raiders marched down the field and scored on a 6-yard reception by Jimmy Marshall.
A few long throws by Willis brought the Flames into striking distance again before the team settled for a 37-yard field goal. MTSU fumbled the resulting kickoff and Liberty recovered. The Flames failed to capitalize on the fumble, however, and the game entered halftime with a score of 24-7.
Liberty opened the second half with a quick drive before punting the ball to the Blue Raiders. Only two plays later, Liberty’s defense had one of its best plays of the night when Cunningham fumbled the ball into the end zone after a sack. Liberty recovered the ball out of bounds for a safety.
Willis’ woes throwing the ball continued, and he threw his second interception of the game to DQ Thomas. MTSU could not use the momentum shift to its advantage and turned the ball over after failing to convert on fourth down.
Willis once again erred throwing the football, and on the first play of the drive, he threw his third and final interception of the night. This mistake proved costly as the Blue Raiders would score their second touchdown four plays later. However, they failed to convert the 2-point conversion.
The following drive for Liberty consisted solely of runs and allowed the offense to regain momentum. Running back Joshua Mack scored for the Flames to make the score 32-13. Liberty converted the 2-point conversion after Willis dodged defenders and found Brody Brumm open in the end zone.
As the third quarter drew to an end, the score remained at 34-13 until a little over four minutes left in regulation. Willis scored on a 1-yard rush for the last scoring play of the game.
Liberty finished the game with 222 passing yards and 227 yards on the ground, with Willis being responsible for all of the passing yards and 80 rushing yards. MTSU garnered 230 yards in the air but only added 35 rushing yards.
In a game with three turnovers for Willis, Liberty’s defense held the battle line. After the game, Head Coach Hugh Freeze complimented the defense and acknowledged that Liberty still needed to work on its offense.
“Our defense played really, really well,” Freeze said. “I think they’re playing at a high level. That’s incredibly good to see because we’re still very inconsistent on offense. We needed them to play well tonight with us turning the ball over, which has not been something we’ve done all year. I’ve got to get us more consistent offensively.”
Freeze also credited the victory to the Flames’ rushing success and the defense’s ability to restrict the Blue Raiders on the ground.
“I really felt like we needed to try to make them one-dimensional [and] stop the run,” Freeze said. “I thought we did that. It’s the fifth game we’ve won the rushing battle, and we’ve won all five of those. That’s something I preach to our team every Friday night at the hotel. We’ve got to win the rushing battle. Our defense did a good job stopping the run.”
Despite the three interceptions for Willis (prior to tonight, he had zero on the season), Liberty’s quarterback refused to let bad plays impact his next drives. Willis also chose to view the positives from the game instead of dwelling on his mistakes. This no doubt helped him recover from the rough patches on offense.
This was especially evident in Liberty’s touchdown drive immediately following the third turnover. Despite running the ball for the entirety of the drive, Willis demonstrated his skills outside of the pocket with a heroic display on the two-point conversion. Willis avoided several defenders and kept the play alive despite dismal odds of a conversion.
“I’m not happy with my performance, but I’m happy I got to go out there and glorify God. I’m happy we got the [win],” Willis said. “At the end of the day, I wasn’t going to give up. I wasn’t going to fold and get into a little shell.”
Even though Willis’ performance was far from ideal, it still garnered the attention and respect of Blue Raiders Head Coach Rick Stockstill.
“Their quarterback [Malik Willis] is special and did a fantastic job of extending plays,” Stockstill said. “We had our hands on him, but so does everybody else in the country and couldn’t get him down. I have a ton of respect for Malik, just an outstanding quarterback and played really well tonight.”
Next week, Liberty will travel to Louisiana for a battle against Louisiana-Monroe Oct. 16. The Warhawks enter the game 2-3 while the Flames stand at 5-1.
Shields is the asst. sports editor. Follow him on Twitter at @cpshields2000.