Flames Football alumni chime in on team’s Fiesta Bowl chances, Liberty’s opportunity to advance Dr. Falwell’s vision

Seven years ago, when Liberty University hired Ian McCaw as its director of athletics, the Flames Football program was competing quite well at the FCS level, after winning its first-ever playoff game two seasons before at in-state rival JMU on Nov. 29, 2014.

Liberty was not in conversations for bowl bids, however, as it would be two more years before the Flames transitioned to the FBS in 2018. They would qualify for lower-tier bowl games in their first four seasons as an independent program, from 2019-22, winning their first three to join Appalachian State as the only two teams to do so in their first three seasons of bowl eligibility.

In its inaugural season in Conference USA this fall, Liberty capped a 13-0 season by winning the CUSA Championship on Dec. 1 at Williams Stadium and was rewarded with a trip to the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 1 in Glendale, Ariz.

“(In 2016), we were playing in the Big South Conference against Gardner-Webb and Presbyterian, and now we’re getting ready to go to a New Year’s Six bowl to play Oregon,” McCaw said of the No. 8-ranked Ducks. “That is a pretty rapid transformation of a football program. Conference USA has been a huge asset and a huge blessing for us.  It’s another marker for this program that has just grown by leaps and bounds over the last 50 years and we couldn’t be more excited about where we are right now.”

The Flames, led by first-year Head Coach Jamey Chadwell, are the highest-ranked Group of 5 conference champion in the nation at No. 23 in the College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings, and one of only four undefeated FBS teams along with Michigan, Washington, and Florida State.

“People knew, obviously, we were having a good season, but now, being in a New Year’s Six everybody’s looking. ‘Hey, who is this program? What are they about? What’s their brand?’” Chadwell said. “We’re in our fifth year of FBS football. Our fifth bowl game is a New Year’s Six, in our first year in a conference. That doesn’t happen. That’s a storybook-type deal. If you stay the course, believe in yourself, and put the players first, good things can happen.”

McCaw noted that Liberty has now been ranked nationally in three of the last four seasons and has posted five wins over Power 5 teams — Arkansas and BYU in 2022, Virginia Tech and Syracuse in 2020, and Baylor in 2017, in Liberty’s first game with McCaw as its AD.

“We’ve had a lot of great milestones for this program, but the validation of getting to a New Year’s Six game is at a different level,” said McCaw, who guided Baylor to the Fiesta Bowl in 2014. “That is something that’s really going to put our program on a national stage (and) we’re excited about that.”

So is the rest of Flames Nation, including its spirit-filled fan base of students and alumni, as well as players and coaches from the past five decades who have remained die-hard backers of the program through the highs and lows of Liberty’s rapid rise in the FBS ranks.

Richard Shelton (’89) arrived at Liberty Baptist College in 1984 and saw the small Christian school rebranded as Liberty University in 1985 and the team transition to the NCAA Division I-AA level in 1988. The former NFL defensive back said the program’s progression has continued on the same trajectory over the past 40 years.

“To see the transformation, it’s amazing,” Shelton said. “I’m sure (Liberty founder) Dr. (Jerry) Falwell would be very pleased how it has grown. I’m happy for the university, happy for the direction of the football team and where it’s going. It was a pleasure to have played there, and to be able to help them get to where they are now.”

Rick Gage (’98), the Atlanta-based evangelist who coached running backs under Head Coach Morgan Hout from 1984-85, said Liberty Football’s success this season is a continuation of the fulfillment of the vision cast by Dr. Falwell before the program’s inaugural season in 1973.

“It’s unbelievable what God has done in such a short period of time,” said Gage, who attended the past two CFP National Championship games won by Georgia, his wife Lynne’s alma mater. “Liberty is still just a baby school. Georgia was founded in 1785 and a lot of these other (FBS) schools have got 100 years on Liberty,” which, like the Fiesta Bowl, was founded in 1971.

Gage returned to Lynchburg, Va., in September, when Dr. Ed Gomes, Flames Football’s Director of Spiritual Development for the past 24 seasons, introduced him to Chadwell at a practice. He offered encouragement to the first-year coach who succeeded Hugh Freeze last December.

“I told him, ‘You are sitting on a gold mine and I believe the greatest days of this football program are ahead of you, and that one day, the potential is there to win a national championship,’” Gage said, noting that next year, when the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams, Liberty could potentially be in the hunt for a spot in the playoff.

“I am thrilled,” Gage said. “With all of the joy and the excitement on Liberty’s campus (after the Fiesta Bowl announcement on ESPN) when the players and coaches were praising God saying, ‘To God be the glory,’ I can just envision Dr. Falwell up there in Heaven saying, ‘I told you so.’”

Gage said Chadwell has done a phenomenal job in leading Liberty to the first undefeated season for any FBS program in Virginia. As a former running backs coach, he is particularly impressed that the Flames’ backfield led the nation in rushing with 3,938 yards and 39 touchdowns.

“That is amazing, those stats,” he said. “They say the sign of a great coach is being able to get the most out of their players and Jamey and his staff have definitely done that this year. He had a great program at Coastal Carolina, so the scheme that he brought to Liberty offensively and the personnel that was already there and what he recruited was a perfect fit, a win-win.”

Frankie Hickson (’20), the Flames’ all-time leader with 4,494 all-purpose yards and fourth-leading rusher in program history who played the past two seasons with the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders, said the path the team has taken is beyond his imagination.

“I’ve always expected to see success with Liberty, but I don’t know if I expected it to be in the New Year’s Six,” he said. “It is amazing to see Dr. Falwell and his vision for the school and how it’s exponentially gotten to the point where he always said it would. It’s a blessing to be a part of it, and it’s a blessing to watch from a distance.”

Hickson was teammates with fifth-year players Tyren Dupree, Noah Frith, Jonathan Graham, and Brendan Schlittler for his senior season in 2019, when the Flames defeated Georgia Southern in their first bowl game, the Cure Bowl in Orlando, Fla.

“Talking to the guys, I can see a light in them that I haven’t seen in a long time, with huge smiles on their faces, filled with joy in the things they’re accomplishing — not just on a football level, but spiritually, mind, body, and spirit, the making of the whole man,” Hickson said. “They have set the bar high moving forward.”

Hickson said he believes the Flames are a perfect fit for the Fiesta, and that the team matches up fairly well with the Ducks schematically.

“I’ve got a lot of faith in Liberty, that’s for sure,” he said. “It’s always been about the guys in the red, white and blue, all about the guys in the locker room. They have as much talent as they need, great coaching and schemes, so at that point it’s about going out and executing.”

“We’re a bit of an underdog, but as long as we are in the fight, we’ve got a chance,” Hickson added. “Statistically, they haven’t seen a rushing attack of Liberty’s caliber, ranked No. 1 in the United States. It might be crazy to say, but I’m not expecting anything but a really good game and that we have the potential to beat them. We’ve got to keep remaining faithful, serving God, and He’ll take care of us.”

Hickson said that though Oregon (11-2), led by Heisman Trophy finalist Bo Nix, has faced some blue-chip quarterbacks — including PAC-12 champion Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. twice and Southern California’s Caleb Williams, the 2022 Heisman winner — Flames junior Kaidon Salter will be one of the better signal-callers the Ducks have seen.

Salter, who set a single-season program record with 31 touchdown passes and ranks third in the nation in pass efficiency, orchestrates Chadwell’s spread option attack that has produced 40.8 points per game, fifth most in the nation. Hickson said the offense is a blend of the triple option run by Flames Head Coach Turner Gill, who recruited him out of Heritage High School in Lynchburg, and what Freeze brought in with his Run-Pass-Option (RPO) attack.

“It’s very much a running back by committee offense, with (Quinton) Cooley and the rest of the gang and Salter as well, all of the same mindset, a very hard-nosed mentality,” Hickson said. “I love what they’re doing. They are all running at full force with reckless abandon and no fear, and that’s the best type of running back.”

Wayne Haddix (’86), a defensive back who was inducted into Liberty’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2014, said it will be imperative for the Flames’ defense, which leads the nation with 21 interceptions, to make multiple stops and force its share of turnovers.

“It will take playing error-free football,” said Haddix, whose five-year NFL career included a trip to the Pro Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1990. “You can’t give teams like this second chances, more opportunities. They’re too potent, and they’ve got a lot of weapons, especially on offense. I think Liberty offensively will put up some numbers, but they’ve got to be solid on defense to win. Win or lose, and I hope they win, I just want them to have a good showing, to be on that level competitively. With the number of fans that will be watching that game nationally, that would open some eyes across the country as far as Liberty being the place (for high-level recruits) to go.”

He said wins over Baylor and BYU were giant steps for a program to gain national recognition, and a victory over Oregon would be monumental.

“People across the country know those names, and to play them is one thing, but to beat them is another,” Haddix said. “When I went there, people would say ‘Liberty University who?’ I don’t have to explain Liberty as much anymore. Now most people know who Liberty is and even more will know after the Fiesta Bowl. I hope there will be some people in the stands that are there for football, that are neutral, and I hope Liberty can win some of them over, just by being competitive for four quarters with Oregon. Winning would be incredible.”

For Dr. Samkon Gado (’05), a running back for the Flames from 2001-04 and in the NFL from 2005-10 before pursuing a career in the medical field, the past 20 seasons have been the “progression of a vision.”

“Dr. Jerry Falwell longed to see this happen, but I don’t think this is ultimately where he wanted us to go,” Gado said. “For Liberty, excellence is winning a national championship. That’s not beyond the reason of expectation. This is a wonderful step in the right direction, and it’s happened a lot quicker than anyone would have expected. I am so happy to see what Coach Chadwell has done. He has succeeded on the shoulders of others. It has taken lot of work and ethics from so many people, from Coach (Ken) Karcher (who recruited Gado) to Coach (Dan) Rocco, to Coach Gill, to Coach Freeze, … there’s a legacy that you can trace all the way back to 1971 and it’s exciting. But this isn’t the end. This is only the beginning.”

“Ultimately, the purpose of Liberty’s football team is to show the beauty of Christ and that means a successful Fiesta Bowl, to play the game in a manner that shows that Jesus is our treasure, that Jesus is more valuable to us than anything else,” he added. “That’s strange to the world (but) Jesus was excellent in everything He did. Our standard of excellence is what God discerns (and) the Lord is going to be glorified whether they win or lose. That gives them the freedom to play, which increases their chances of winning.”

Haddix sees biblical parallels to the story of David and Goliath in the Liberty-Oregon matchup, and if the Flames come out firing on all cylinders and with the power of the Holy Spirit on their side, they can pull off a similar-sized upset.

“I don’t think (the Ducks) can out-physical us or out-speed us,” he said. “Their offense is something that Liberty has not seen before, but it is also something (the Flames are) capable of handling. (Coach Chadwell) is a respectable Christian man, but he’s also a competitor. And as much of a Goliath as they are, we are still David with his stones. As long as we pick up that stone, have that in our hand, we have got a shot.”

Patrick Kelly (‘13), a Liberty Christian Academy graduate who played eight seasons in Williams Stadium and caught a program-best 16 passes against Coastal Carolina in 2012, has witnessed first-hand the rise of the Flames’ program, now serving in his fifth season as an analyst alongside Rett McGibbon and Reggie Walker for the pre-game, halftime, and post-game shows at Liberty home games. He has been impressed by the level of commitment Chadwell brought in that has translated to his coaching staff and the 116 players on their roster.

“Over the years, with coaches bought into the program, it used to be just making the FCS playoffs was the goal,” said Kelly, who will be traveling to the Fiesta Bowl for a live, two-hour pregame production. “Now, playing on New Years’ Day with a massive amount at stake, it’s cool to see it come full circle. Coach Chadwell has done a phenomenal job of getting buy-in from the team and to gravitate that into one goal, playing for one another and blocking out the outside noise. He has found a way to foster a very healthy, fun environment, and has done a really good job of developing a positive team culture.”

Similar to the “Rise With Us” and “Tougher Together” mottoes employed by Freeze, Chadwell brought with him the “Strike the Stone” mentality that worked wonders for his teams at Coastal Carolina.

“The premise there is to just keep on keeping on, keep making plays, keep showing up, keep doing your job,” Kelly said. “Football is such a team game with so many moving pieces that you have to do the little things right. And when you do all the small things right, it combines and leads to big successes.”