Jerry Falwell Sr. founded Liberty Baptist College in 1971. Two years later, the school, now Liberty University, was playing football, not well, necessarily – Liberty Football launched at the lowest level of intercollegiate competition, NAIA, then moved up to D2 in 1981, finally getting to FBS in 2018 – but having Liberty playing big-time college football was always part of the mission.
Falwell Sr., who once hired a former NFL head coach, Sam Rutigliano, died in 2007. His son, Jerry Falwell Jr., who hired disgraced former Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze, isn’t around anymore, either, but for a different reason – he resigned as president of Liberty University in 2020 at the height of a sex scandal, and a lawsuit filed by the school in 2021 alleged breach of contract and fiduciary duty.
Freeze, who was forced out at Ole Miss in 2017 when it was revealed that he had made calls to escort services from his university cellphone, has worked alongside athletics director Ian McCaw, who resigned as AD at Baylor in 2016 amid allegations that the athletics program there had covered up numerous reports of sexual assault involving members of the school’s football team, to realize the half-century-old football vision of Falwell Sr.
Freeze took over in 2019 for Turner Gill, who had led Liberty to four straight six-win seasons, and had the Flames finishing 8-5 in his first season, then going 10-1 with a win over Virginia Tech and a #17 ranking in the final AP Top 25 in 2020.
Liberty slipped to 8-5 in 2021, but heading into Saturday’s home game with BYU, another religion-based school that, along with Notre Dame, had served as a model for Falwell Sr. when he envisioned what football could do to build the brand of Liberty University, the Flames were 6-1, on the verge of another Top 25 ranking, and Freeze wasn’t alone in framing the BYU game “the biggest game in school history.”
“I debated if that was the right thing to do,” Freeze said. “I think our players know me, and if I said anything other than that, they would say, He’s not being true to himself. I just told them, point blank, this is the biggest game in school history.
“I told them this morning I had no idea what the scoreboard would say at the end. I don’t want you to look at the scoreboard. I want you to just immerse yourself in a fist fight for four quarters, and let’s see what it says. The only thing that would make you a failure today would be you not offering up something that costs you something. I’m proud at the way they responded.”
BYU got out to an early 14-3 lead, but Liberty would score the next 38 points in the 41-14 win that sent fans over the rails for a field storm.
This was one where the final score made the game seem closer than it was. Liberty outgained BYU 547-258, piled up 300 yards on the ground, had the ball for 39:08 of the 60 minutes.
“I think Liberty is a lot better than people think,” BYU coach Kalani Sitake said after the beatdown. “I did not take them lightly. I know a lot of people in college football probably do. I know that Coach Freeze is a great coach, and those guys played some inspired football. Their only loss is to Wake Forest. They only lost by one because they went for two. This team is a really good team, and they played really well.”
Liberty, under Freeze, now has wins over Virginia Tech, Syracuse, now BYU, with games later this season at Arkansas, a former SEC foe for Freeze, and Virginia Tech, which will visit Williams Stadium for what will no doubt be the next “biggest game in school history” on Nov. 19.
The next question for Liberty Football is: is this something that can be sustained?
With respect to Freeze, the assumption of many college football observers when he was hired was that he would use the Liberty job to rehabilitate his reputation with his eyes on getting back to the big-time.
Freeze had gone 39-25 in five seasons at Ole Miss, with back-to-back wins over Alabama and a 10-3 finish in 2015, though 27 of the wins were later vacated by the NCAA in 2019 after an investigation determined that the program was guilty of numerous recruiting and academic violations under Freeze and his predecessor, Houston Nutt.
It was that investigation that would lead to the discovery of the phone calls from Freeze’s university cellphone to escort services.
His success at Liberty led the school to extend his contract through 2028 and pay him $4 million a year, which is in the range of what the two ACC schools in the Commonwealth, Virginia and Virginia Tech, are paying their football coaches.
That won’t necessarily keep Freeze from listening if another SEC school comes a-calling, but at least in the moment last night, after dominating BYU, the field storm, the rest, Freeze seemed content.
“To have the opportunity to come to a place that loves you for who you are, that gets to know you and judges you for who you are, good and bad, and then gives you the reins to prove that you can have field stormings at a place like this, it makes my gratitude levels pretty high. I’m just thankful. They’re all fun, but this one is at least way up there,” Freeze said.
Share
Chris Graham
