Cure Bowl showdown between Flames Football, Coastal Carolina projected to be one of postseason’s best

It will be a busy college football bowl week at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla., starting with 23rd-ranked Liberty University’s showdown with No. 9/11 Coastal Carolina in Saturday’s Cure Bowl, kicking off at 7:35 p.m. on ESPN. That is the first of three games on tap at the venue, followed by the Dec. 29 Cheez-It Bowl between No. 18 Miami and Oklahoma State and the Jan. 1 Citrus Bowl, pitting Auburn against No. 15/13 Northwestern.

But with the exception of the New Year’s Six Bowls (Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Peach, Rose, and Sugar), few of the 27 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) contests around the country this postseason are receiving as much hype as the renewed rivalry between the Flames (9-1) and the Chanticleers (11-0). Both Sports Illustrated and College Football News rank Saturday night’s clash of non-Power Five titans as the best bowl game of them all.

“It’s a great matchup,” Liberty second-year Head Coach Hugh Freeze said. “I think it’s one of the more intriguing matchups in the bowl season. I think it will be well received, and hopefully we will put a great product out there and represent Liberty well.”

The former Big South Conference foes — who met every season from 2003-16 with the winner often clinching the regular-season championship — were scheduled to face off for the first time in four seasons Dec. 5 in Conway, S.C., with ESPN’s College GameDay on site to promote it as the nation’s featured matchup that weekend.

“I appreciate rivalry games,” Freeze said. “I get that. Now to do it in the Cure Bowl with them and us being ranked in the Top 25, that’s exciting. I know there will be a lot of emotions going into it, but it still will come down to who executes the best that will win the game.”

Though it is competing in its first bowl game, Coastal Carolina is riding the longest winning streak in the nation (12 games). The Chanticleers dealt BYU its first defeat on Dec. 5, when the Cougars took the place of Liberty after positive COVID-19 tests prevented the Flames from traveling.

Saturday’s long-awaited rematch will be Liberty’s first-ever Top-25 showdown, after losing their only two previous games against ranked opponents — at No. 23 North Carolina on Aug. 30, 2014 and at home against No. 22 Syracuse on Aug. 31, 2019. A Flames victory would match their program record for wins, after finishing 10-2 in 2008.

Coastal Carolina, which moved to the FBS ranks and joined the Sun Belt in 2017, won its first two games against ranked opponents this season — edging No. 23-ranked Louisiana, 30-27 on the road on Oct. 14, and No. 9 BYU at home, 22-17, by stopping wide receiver Dax Milne at the 1-yard line as time expired.

Liberty, which became only the third program to win a bowl game in its first season of eligibility by defeating Georgia Southern in last year’s Cure Bowl — held in Orlando’s Exploria Stadium — could become only the second team to win back-to-back bowl games in its first two seasons. Appalachian State was the first, edging Ohio and Toledo, respectively, in the 2015 and 2016 Camellia (Ala.) Bowls before going on to win four more in a row, including the New Orleans Bowls in 2018 and 2019 and Monday’s 56-28 victory over North Texas in the inaugural Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Bowl.

After beating Syracuse, 38-21 on Oct. 17 in the Carrier Dome and Virginia Tech, 38-35 on placekicker Alex Barbir’s 51-yard field goal Nov. 7 in Blacksburg, the Flames’ only loss this season came against a third ACC opponent, in a 15-14 battle at North Carolina State on Nov. 21, after a go-ahead field goal attempt was blocked late in the fourth quarter.

The Flames and Chanticleers hold an all-time series record of 7-7, with Liberty outscoring Coastal by a 433-424 margin. After Coastal Carolina blocked a Liberty field goal to win 55-52 in double overtime at Williams Stadium in 2013, the Flames upset the unbeaten host Chanticleers — ranked No. 1 in FCS at the time — as Chima Uzowihe blocked a last-second field goal in a 15-14 triumph the following year, clinching Liberty’s first and only NCAA FCS playoff bid.

Both Liberty’s and Coastal Carolina’s offenses are orchestrated by dynamic first-year quarterbacks. The Flames feature redshirt junior Malik Willis, an Auburn transfer who is the only quarterback in the country to rank in the top 20 in both passing (20) and rushing (10) touchdowns. He has completed 151 of 236 passes for 2,040 yards and four interceptions and leads FBS quarterbacks with a team-high 807 yards rushing. Coastal counters with a triple-option attack run by redshirt freshman Grayson McCall, who has completed 151 of his 218 passes for 2,170 yards and 23 TDs with two interceptions and rushed for 473 yards and six scores.

Offensively, the Flames rank 17th in the nation in scoring (38.3 points per game), slightly better than the Chanticleers (18th, 37.5). Defensively, Liberty has only allowed 29 points over the past three games and is coming off its first shutout against an FBS program, and first overall since Nov. 5, 2016, with the 45-0 rout of UMass on Nov. 27 at Williams Stadium.

The Flames need 94 rushing yards to eclipse the program’s single-season rushing record of 2,614 yards set in 2003. Willis is three touchdowns and 48 yards away from breaking Mike Brown’s records for most TDs responsible for (32) and most rushing yards in a season (854), with both standards set in 2010.

Freeze has coached two previous 10-win teams — Arkansas State in his first season as an FBS head coach in 2011, and Ole Miss in 2015, when he led the Rebels to a Sugar Bowl victory over Oklahoma State. Liberty is the third team he has guided to a bowl game and he has a 4-2 bowl record overall.

The Chanticleers are coached by Jamey Chadwell, the Sun Belt Conference and Group of 5 Coach of the Year who is one of eight candidates for the Paul “Bear” Bryant Coach of the Year Award. He formerly devised game plans against the Flames and Chanticleers as head coach at Charleston Southern, leading the Buccaneers to Big South Conference titles in 2013 and 2015.

>> Read complete Flames Football and Cure Bowl coverage on the Liberty Athletics website.  Watch Saturday night’s showdown on ESPN or listen to the Liberty Flames Sports Network (LFSN) radio broadcast on The Journey, 88.3-FM.