On New Year's Day, the #23 Liberty Flames will face the #8 Oregon Ducks in the VRBO Fiesta Bowl. The Flames will be Conference USA's first representative to play in a New Year's Six bowl game.
Playing in a stadium the size of State Farm Stadium in Phoenix on ESPN's flagship station will be a huge platform for Liberty football, as well as Conference USA football as a whole. For some, it may even be the first time they've watch CUSA football since the league underwent a dramatic face lift last offseason. Six teams left, Liberty, New Mexico State, Sam Houston, and Jacksonville State all joined, bringing the league's total to nine teams for the 2023 season.
In this instance, the undefeated Flames, with a matchup against a top-ten opponent, have a chance to set very strong example as the league moves forward and continues expanding. Kennesaw State join next year and Delaware will in 2025.
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During a section of his media availability in preparation for the game, Chadwell spoke to his team's success in addition to the league's other achievements this year - notably New Mexico State's domination of Auburn and Jacksonville State reaching (and later winning) a bowl game in their first year in FBS.
"There was a knock on the new Conference USA. 'Hey you're not going to have that good of teams blah blah blah' I think what it showed with who we played, who we beat, was that we were just as good as some of the other [leagues]," Chadwell said.
Chadwell made the move to Liberty last December after previously serving as the head coach of Coastal Carolina. As Liberty complete their first season in a conference after playing as an FBS Independent since 2018, Chadwell reflected on his excitement with CUSA's growth over the last calendar year and change. Chadwell also noted that growth, in his opinion, likely helped his team's case for the G5's top reward from the College Football Playoff Committee.
"My whole point that I was pushing with the AAC was that they've been really tremendous, but they lost a lot of people. UTSA was in Conference USA, they were a quarter away from playing in the [AAC] conference championship game. So I don't think the difference in the leagues were that much. That was our whole push."
While the AAC has reached a New Year's Six game seven times since 2014, Chadwell was looking to the committee to not let the AAC's past success influence their decision to, ultimately, rank the undefeated Flames above the two-loss AAC champion SMU Mustangs.
"We were hoping that the committee wasn't going to live off of last year's AAC, but judge it based off the games this year. Thankfully for us, they did. Hopefully what this does is give hope to the other teams in this conference to say hey if they have tremendous season, then they've got a chance to have the fortune to play in a bowl game like this."
The Flames will play the Ducks on Monday, January 1, with kickoff set for Noon ET on ESPN.
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