Charles “Jughead” Hardage grew up in a football family in Jacksonville, Florida. His dad was his high school football coach. He had a decorated high school career where he was an honorable mention all-state performer and had aspirations to play in college.

Following his junior season in 1972, Jughead and his dad went on a trip visiting 11 colleges across 7 states as he attempted to determine where he would spend his college career. Some of the schools they visited included Elon, Gardner-Webb, and Newberry. They also visited Lyncbhurg Baptist College (now Liberty University).

LBC didn’t even have a football team at the time. The startup school, which was just founded in 1971, only had dreams and a vision of a football program.

When Jughead and his dad arrived to Treasure Island in downtown Lynchburg, there were about 25 guys practicing. The Hardage’s stuck around for the workout and even spent the night to get a longer look at the school and football team.

There were no facilities to speak of. No football stadium. No equipment. No weight room. All that was there was a two-story barn the team used for its football building. Despite this, Jughead felt like he had found his new home.

“The next morning, I got up and said, ‘Daddy, I think this is the place I’m supposed to be,'” recalled Jughead. “I said, ‘Daddy, this place is different. These people are different. I like that environment. I like that place, it’s different.”

Charles “Jughead” Hardage

When Jughead returned to Lynchburg the following summer, August of 1973, he joined a team of about 60 players who were preparing to compete for the first team in school history. Head coach Rock Royer assembled the team and began to hand out equipment. There was one problem – they ran out before the entire team got their equipment. Most of the second and third team players had to share helmets and shoulder pads that season.

After suffering a concussion early in practice that first season, Jughead’s dad sent him his own helmet that was painted the school’s colors and he used all four years he was at LBC. Chip Smith, the first star football player at the school, used his helmet from high school. Several players provided their own equipment to even be able to suit up and play for the team.

Ahead of the team and program’s first ever game, LBC founder Jerry Falwell, Sr. came to one of the team’s practices on Treasure Island and spoke to them about his vision for the school and program.

“In August, Jerry Falwell Sr. walked out on Treasure Island and said ‘I want to share my vision for the program with you guys,'” Hardage stated. “‘I want to build a football program where the football players, coaches, cheerleaders, and spectators can lead others to Christ, but, not only that, I want to build a football program that will play Notre Dame, but to also play for a national championship.'”

“We don’t even have enough equipment to give to second and third string players and you think we’re going to beat Notre Dame,” Jughead said he and some of his teammates thought to themselves at the time.

That first year schedule featured just six games as LBC faced four prep teams and a JV squad. The names on the schedule included the likes of Massanutten Military, Newport News Apprentice, and Hargrave Military.

At the conclusion of the season, the team faced tragedy. Their head coach, Rock Royer, tragically died in a plane crash.

Going through tragedy and the other challenges the first year program faced, several considered leaving and not returning to LBC after the 1973 season, Hardage included.

“After that first year, I wasn’t going to come back,” said Jughead. “We didn’t have the facilities or equipment we needed. I was discouraged by that.”

It was a speech outside the dorms by Chip Smith that helped change several players mind, including Hardage’s. Smith implored his teammates to stick with the school and to buy into the vision Falwell had for them.

Jughead would return and concluded his career for the startup program. Royer was replaced at head coach by former Naval Academy quarterback John Cartwright, an assistant coach under Royer, who guided the team to its first winning season in 1974.

Hardage and his teammates laid the foundation for what Liberty has become today. On New Year’s Day, No. 23 Liberty (13-0) will compete in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl against No. 8 Oregon (11-2), the first New Year’s Bowl Game in program history, just the fifth season competing at the highest level of college football in the FBS.

The facilities aren’t the same. There’s enough equipment for the entire team. There’s an on-campus stadium. There’s a full weight room and locker room. There are 85 scholarship players.

Treasure Island is no longer home to the Liberty football program either. After a flood in November 1985 wiped out the Flames football practice facility, Liberty moved their football operations from an island in the James River and from playing games at Lyncbhurg’s City Stadium to settling on campus. Williams Stadium opened in 1989 with 12,000 seats and has since been renovated and expanded to accommodate up to 25,000 fans.

This Liberty football team has humble beginnings and they have grown into what Falwell’s original vision for them was and continue to strive to be what he thought they could be.

“I feel blessed to be a part of it,” Jughead said of the history of the Liberty football program. His helmet is now property of Liberty after Hardage returned it to his alma mater where it resides in the Jerry Falwell museum.

Jughead says all the players that have been a part of this program over the past 50 years are like a brotherhood. Each one stood on the previous group’s shoulders to help push the program forward.

“I tell players that come after us, if we played football four years and dropped it, we would have been the first of nothing,” Hardage said. “Somebody had to come after us to play their part. Everyone had a part to where we’re at now. I’m very grateful for everyone who has come behind us to carry that torch to where we are today. Even the guys on the team today, I feel so connected to them.”

Earlier this football season, Jughead and several of his teammates reunited on Liberty’s campus in Lynchburg to celebrate the 50th anniversary of that first football team. Fitting that the most successful season in program history came during the 50th anniversary of the 1973 team that went 3-3.

Under first year head coach Jamey Chadwell, the 2023 Liberty Flames have won their first 13 games, entering the Fiesta Bowl with an unblemished 13-0 record. The team has set many program milestones already this season including the first team to win more than 10 games in a year, the first team to win a conference championship at the FBS level, and the first team to play on New Year’s Day.

Jughead’s original football helmet

Since transitioning to the FBS level, Liberty has accumulated a 53-22 recording including a 3-1 mark in bowl games. The Flames have achieved a national ranking in the top 25 in three of the past four seasons, being ranked as high as No. 17. The Flames joined Appalachian State as the only programs to win bowl games in their first three seasons of bowl eligibility and are now the fastest to reach a New Year’s Six contest.

This season, Kaidon Salter has put up numbers to be considered as the greatest season ever by a Liberty quarterback. Salter earned CUSA Most Valuable Player honors after passing for 2,750 yards and rushing for 1,064 yards while boasting the FBS’s third-highest quarterback efficiency in the nation with a school record 43 touchdowns responsible for (31 passing, 12 rushing).

Behind Salter and Chadwell as head coach, Liberty has the most prolific rushing attack in the nation this season. It has produced program records of 3,938 yards (302.9 per game) and 39 touchdowns on the ground. Running back Quinton Cooley has 1,322 rushing yards and 16 touchdowns.

“This whole year we talked about we are writing history for Liberty football,” Chadwell said. “What history will be said will be based off of how we handle ourselves. The history they have already put forth is tremendous, but they’ve got a chance to really close the book with an unbelievable story and unbelievable ending.”

The Flames are ranked No. 23 in the final College Football Playoff rankings, earning a spot in a New Year’s Six game as the top ranked Group of Five Conference Champion. Liberty defeated New Mexico State on December 1 to clinch the Conference USA Championship in the program’s first year in the league.

Liberty is a significant underdog against the Oregon Ducks. Not many outside of the Liberty locker room and fan base give the Flames much of a chance to win the game at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on January 1st. The Flames aren’t worried about the doubters though, something that has been evident for this program throughout its first 50 years.

“Regardless of what happens, we are one of five games on New Year’s Day, the day for college football,” stated Chadwell. “Liberty University is on that day. What that does for recruiting, what that does for our university, what that does for these young people, the guys on our team that are coming back, the standard has been set. Now, they’ve got something that we can try to reach for. The guys that are graduating, that decided to stay, they all could have left. To be rewarded for that and to run out in the tunnel of the Fiesta Bowl is a big deal. I want to make sure they understand the importance of it.”

Not only will the group of Liberty players that run through that tunnel in Arizona at the Fiesta Bowl get to experience it, so will 50 years’ worth of Liberty football alumni. Some of them will be in attendance while countless others will watch on their television.

“I hope I don’t have a heart attack,” Jughead joked about what the New Year’s Day game will be like for him. “I’m that excited about what’s happening. I’m going to feel like I’m on the sidelines because it’s like a dream come true.”