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Can the Liberty Flames Make a New Year’s Six Bowl?

Originally posted on Gridiron Heroics | By John Galletley | Last updated 11/22/23

The Liberty Flames have quietly put together an undefeated season. Now, the College Football Playoff (CFP) committee is finally recognizing it. Liberty made the CFP rankings for the first time this season.

College football fans know that one team from a Group of 5 conference has to make a New Year’s Six bowl. For a while, it seemed like the Tulane Green Wave being the representative was a foregone conclusion. Can the Liberty Flames overtake them? Let’s see what has to happen.

Liberty Flames Have a Weak Strength of Schedule

There is a clear dilemma as to why it took this long for the Liberty Flames to make the CFP rankings. They are sitting with an 11-0 record and are one of the last unbeaten teams remaining. However, the big dilemma they have is their strength of schedule.

Out of 133 NCAA Division 1 teams, the Liberty Flames have the weakest strength of schedule. This means that Liberty has played nobody significant. A big problem for them is that they play in Conference USA.

Two of their best wins this season have come against New Mexico State (9-3) and Jacksonville State (8-3). However, New Mexico State has the second-weakest strength of schedule in college football. Liberty and New Mexico State are also set to clash in the Conference USA Championship.

American Athletic Conference Competition

Liberty also has another obstacle that they need to overcome. That obstacle is that the American Athletic Conference (AAC) is arguably the strongest conference in the Group of 5. The Flames are going to have to hold off the winner of this conference if they hope to represent the Group of 5 in a New Year’s Six bowl.

Right now, the Tulane Green Wave are the highest-ranked Group of 5 team, sitting at #23. However, they have a tough schedule to close out the season. They play UTSA this week, who is undefeated in conference play. Then, they could potentially clash with SMU in a conference championship game.

However, there is a chance that they could miss out on the AAC Championship game entirely. UTSA is undefeated in AAC play as well. So, if Tulane falls here, it could set up an SMU and UTSA clash.

The worst scenario for Liberty is SMU and Tulane both winning this week. Considering SMU hosts Navy this week, it will be a surprise if they lose. Both of them winning means they will be in the conference championship game.

Tulane is already ahead of Liberty and likely stays ahead if they win out. However, if SMU takes down Tulane, that opens up the door for them. The reason is they only have two losses this season. Both were tough losses on the road against the Oklahoma Sooners and TCU Horned Frogs. So, it is not unreasonable to think SMU could leapfrog Liberty for the top Group of 5 spot here.

We will have to see how this plays out. However, one thing seems clear. The Liberty Flames need to root for Navy and/or UTSA this week.