Kickoff for the 2023 Liberty Flames football season is still over four months away, but it’s never too early to begin discussing the upcoming season.
ESPN’s newly unveiled Football Power Index rankings project Liberty to finish 8.1-4.3 (so basically 8 wins) and 97th overall. According to the metric, the Flames have a 0.3% chance to go undefeated and a 93.4% chance to win six games or more and advance to a fifth straight bowl game.
As Liberty enters Conference USA and attempts to win the program’s first ever conference championship at the FBS level, here’s a look at where the rest of the CUSA members rank with their projected win total:
88. Western Kentucky (8.1)
97. Liberty (8.1)
101. Louisiana Tech (6.8)
112. Middle Tennessee (6.7)
124. UTEP (5.5)
129. FIU (4.3)
130. New Mexico State (5.2)
FBS newcomers Sam Houston and Jacksonville State are not currently included in the rankings.
As far as the 2023 non-conference schedule goes, here’s how Liberty’s opponents look.
103. Buffalo
115. Old Dominion
125. Bowling Green
133. UMass
The only team Liberty faces that is ranked ahead of them is Western Kentucky. The Flames will be looking to become bowl eligible for a fifth consecutive season after winning the Cure Bowl in 2019 and 2020 and the 2021 Lending Tree Bowl and also advancing to the 2022 Boca Raton Bow.. The Flames have won at least 8 games in each of the past four seasons.
FPI also predicts the favorites to win the CUSA title in 2023:
39.8% Western Kentucky
23.4% Liberty
16.7% Louisiana Tech
13.8% Middle Tennessee
4.2% UTEP
1.2% FIU
0.9% New Mexico State
