It’s the last of the regular bowls.
The Bahamas Bowl used to be the first out of the gate, but now it’s at the end to make the travel arrangements easier. But after this we get two College Football Playoff semifinals, and a national championship, and that’s the season.
The last time we saw Liberty in a bowl game it was getting rocked by Oregon 45-6 in the Fiesta. In its short history of bowls it’s 3-2, and now it has a chance to pull off something good after a wildly disappointing season.
It was supposed to be in the mix for the CFP, but it lost three of its last six games including the regular season finale against Sam Houston.
Buffalo wasn’t supposed to do too much in the first year under Pete Lembo, but it started well, overcame a rough patch, and won its last four games to get here.
It’s just the seventh bowl appearance and the first since beating Georgia Southern in the 2022 Camellia. After losing its first three bowl games, UB has won its last three.
Date: Friday, January 3, 2025
Game Time: 11:00 am ET
How To Watch: ESPN2
Venue: Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium, Nassau
Teams: Buffalo (8-4), Liberty (8-3)
Fiu Bluesky | CFN Bluesky | CFN X | CFN FB
- Bowl Schedule, Scoreboard, Predictions
Gear down and grind it out.
Liberty has a big personnel problem with lost parts, but it’s still good with plenty of strong parts to pull this off. But Buffalo doesn’t do anything with the time of possession battle, and the Flames are strong at controlling the ball and the clock.
It starts with hitting the midrange passes and converting on third downs. Liberty normally works with a decent pace, and there won’t be much of a change in styles with Ryan Burger in at quarterback.
He didn’t see much time at Appalachian State, and he only threw seven passes this year for the Flames, but he has hit his throws. Liberty is 9-0 when it completes more than 55% of his throws, and 0-3 when it doesn’t.
Buffalo allows teams to hit 63% of their passes, but …
The Bulls have the two best linebackers you probably haven’t seen, and they’re expected to play.
Shaun Dolac only seemed like he tackled everything, coming up with 159 tackles on the season with 5.5 sacks, 16.5 tackles for loss, and five interceptions. Red Murdock got to everything else with 143 stops, two sacks, and 14 tackles for loss.
This can always change at the last second, but for now, Buffalo doesn’t appear to be missing that much, if anyone. Liberty star quarterback Kaidon Salter is off to Colorado, top RB Quinton Cooley is gone, and the O line needs to be retooled a bit.
This is where Dolac and Murdock come in. UB is 8-0 when keeping teams to under 200 rushing yards, 0-4 when allowing more.
With Cooley and his 1,254 yards and 13 scores gone, and the threat of Salter not there, it’ll take a committee to get that ground attack going, but …
The system that cranked up the second-most rushing yards in America will still work.
Buffalo might have more parts around, and it’ll have the offense to keep up for a while, but the Flames will get enough out of all the different backs to get to 200 yards.
UB is well coached and will have its moments, but watch Liberty come out hot with the ground game able to keep the chains moving.
It will seem like the Liberty offense is always on the field.
Prediction: Liberty 34, Buffalo 24
Line: Buffalo -3.5, o/u: 50.5
ATS Confidence out of 5: 4
Must See Rating: 3
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