Liberty ruined Coastal Carolina’s undefeated No. 12 season on Saturday night.
Flames blocked an attempted field goal attempt by Massimo Biscardi of Coastal Carolina in overtime to beat the Chanticleers 37-34 in the Cure Bowl.
Liberty ends the season at 10-1, while Coastal Carolina ends the year at 11-1, after losing the College Football Playoff and a spot in the New Year’s Six Bowl.
Liberty fumbled when trying not to score
Freedom should have won in the regulation.
Flames had the ball 3 minutes from time, after Coastal tied the game at 34-34 with a touchdown. Liberty quickly moved the ball across the field and scored the first goal 1:35 from the end.
Instead of trying to score a touchdown, Liberty and coach Hugh Freeze decided to try a field goal that won the game when time was up. And instead of kneeling, Freeze called it racing.
The first move worked. Coastal wanted Liberty to score and Joshua Mack just dropped in 5. On the next play, Mack inexplicably ran towards the end zone. And thanks to a push from his attacker and the willingness of Coastal’s defenders to let him score, he pushed his way into the end zone.
And he fumbled before he got there.
Coastal recovered the ball and ran the clock in the regulation to force overtime.
Liberty had to cancel the December 12 game with Coastal Carolina
The two teams were cast for the Cure Bowl after Liberty was forced to withdraw from a game two weeks earlier against the Chanticleers.
Liberty was scheduled to visit the CCU on December 12, but was unable to play due to COVID-19 cases among the team. The Flames’ inability to play the game shaped BYU’s last-minute trip to Myrtle Beach in a game that became one of the best in the 2020 college football season. CCU beat the Cougars 22-17 after stopping BYU, previously unbeaten, close to the goal line when time was up.
It looked like the goal line magic would strike again for Coastal Carolina after Mack’s fumble and Liberty’s field goal to start overtime. But Grayson McCall launched three consecutive failures with the help of a sketched non-call from a potential pass interference penalty to set up the blocked field goal attempt.
Liberty QB Malik Willis scored 4 TDs
Liberty QB Malik Willis gave Coastal attacks all night. Auburn’s transfer repeatedly escaped from his pocket on Saturday night on his way to 137 yards and four straight touchdowns. Willis and Mack combined ran for 242 yards while Coastal allowed Liberty to run for more than six yards per carry.
Coastal ran for 165 yards while McCall had 96 out of 15 loads. He was also 21 of 32 passes for 318 yards and three touchdowns and an interception.
The two best teams out of the Power Five?
With BYU considered a Power Five team for the purposes of the College Football Playoff, it is fair to ask whether Liberty and Coastal Carolina were the two best teams outside the Power Five conferences in 2020.
Liberty’s only defeat was against the state of North Carolina, in a 15 to 14 battle. The Flames defeated Virginia Tech and Syracuse at the ACC and also defeated Western Kentucky, a team that played in the LendingTree Bowl earlier in the day.
Coastal Carolina defeated Kansas to start the season and beat Louisiana and Appalachian State, in addition to the victory over BYU. The Chanticleers had a rematch against Louisiana scheduled for December 19 in the Sun Belt championship game, but that game was not played because an entire position group at CCU would not have been able to play thanks to the potential exposure to someone with COVID-19 .
And while we had the most fun game of the bowl season so far on Saturday night, when Liberty and CCU were able to make up for their canceled regular season game, we can’t help but wonder how fun it would have been to see each team take on a team of a bigger conference. After all, the Cure Bowl never hosted a team with more than eight wins in a season until Saturday night, when those two teams entered the game with 20 combined wins.
Both deserved a bigger stage. And the chance to play against bigger teams too.
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