When Liberty announced it had reached a secondary bowl agreement with the Cure Bowl in July 2018, it was met with little fanfare and understandably so.
The Flames were geering up for the 2018 season where Liberty wasn’t even bowl eligible, and could only fill a slot if several dominoes fell the right way. So, a secondary bowl agreement with a bowl most of us had never heard of being announced in the middle of the summer was relatively minor news. But not for Ian McCaw and the Flames’ Athletic Department. They know how important that agreement was.
“The two biggest things we needed to accomplish as we made the transition to the FBS after we put the schedule together was to get a TV agreement and a bowl agreement,” Liberty Athletic Director Ian McCaw stated earlier this week. “We were fortunate to get a deal with ESPN for our television rights, and then Alan Gooch came forward and offered us a bowl agreement that has been a real boon for our program.”
Getting this agreement for the 2018 and 2019 seasons, was a major coup for McCaw and his staff. It came during the end of the current bowl cycle, and the Flames were only going to be eligible for one of those two seasons. It’s further evidence of the amazing job McCaw has done since he was hired at Liberty in November 2016.
The athletic department has soared to new heights at an impressive rate. Just a couple years ago the Flames’ football team was struggling to beat Monmouth and Presbyterian and the basketball team was coming off three straight 20-loss seasons.
Enter McCaw.
The football team is now a full FBS member and preparing for its first ever bowl appearance while the men’s basketball team is one of five unbeatens remaining and receiving votes in the Top 25 polls.
“We are honored and grateful to accept an invitation to participate in the 2019 Cure Bowl,” said McCaw. “I really want to thank Alan Gooch, the Executive Director, for their support. First of all, for being willing to sign a secondary bowl agreement with Liberty back as we made this transition to FBS football was really an important step for us. Then, for that to come to fruition with the invitation to play a really good Georgia Southern team in that game is really exciting for us.”
This is the final year of the two-year agreement between Liberty and the Cure Bowl, but the Flames have entered into a new agreement with ESPN for 2020-25. That agreement could place the Flames in one of at least six bowl games: Boca Raton Bowl (Boca Raton, FL), Camellia Bowl (Montgomery, AL), Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (Boise, ID), Tropical Smoothie Cafe Frisco Bowl (Frisco, TX), Myrtle Beach Bowl (Conway, SC), and the New Mexico Bowl (Albuquerque, NM).
“They gave us the opportunity to have a bowl game this year,” McCaw said of the Cure Bowl. “That was a big step by the Cure Bowl and it’s something we’re glad to reciprocate with our acceptance of the bowl opportunity.”
