Johnathan Bennett has been doubted and counted out at every turn of his Liberty football career. He has faced criticism and adversity throughout his career, but he fought through those skeptics and helped lead the Flames to the biggest win in school history.

Entering Saturday’s game against BYU, Bennett had completed 53 of 105 passes for 692 yards, 6 touchdowns, and 6 interceptions this season. Last week against Gardner-Webb, Bennett was 17 of 30 passing for 222 yards, 1 touchdown, and 2 interceptions. Those aren’t numbers that would leave you confident in his ability to lead the Flames to a win as a touchdown underdog against the Cougars.

Bennett came through when the lights were the brightest and had the best performance of his college career to date, leading the Flames to a 41-14 rout of BYU in front of a Williams Stadium record crowd of 24,012. The redshirt-junior quarterback completed 24 of 29 passes for 2 touchdowns and 1 interception while also rushing the ball 8 times for 46 yards.

“I’m just so happy for JB and to be able to experience this moment, that’s gratifying,” Liberty head football coach Hugh Freeze said of Bennett following the game. “It came down to JB being a consistent quarterback tonight. Using his legs when he needed to, his check downs when he needed to.”

Bennett was named Liberty’s second string quarterback just ahead of the season opener at Southern Miss towards the end of fall camp. Coach Freeze had opted to go with the veteran Charlie Brewer as the team’s starter entering the season and understandably so. Brewer had passed for over 10,000 yards during his career at Baylor and Utah before finding his way to Lynchburg for his final season of eligibility.

When Brewer went down with a broken right hand on the second series of the game, Freeze turned to Bennett. With the offense struggling to find consistency and the team falling behind the Golden Eagles entering the fourth quarter, redshirt-freshman Kaidon Salter was put in the game in place of Bennett. Salter was dynamic during the fourth period in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, leading the Flames to two game-tying touchdown drives in the final 15 minutes of regulation and eventually securing the win in four overtimes.

Following the opening night win, Salter was the team’s starting quarterback moving forward and many thought he might grab reigns of the job for the rest of the season. He led Liberty to a win against UAB on a rainy home opener in Lynchburg the following week. Salter then had the Flames a two point conversion away from knocking off Wake Forest on the road in his second start.

After that loss to the Demon Deacons, Salter was unable to return to practice as he suffered a groin injury and was forced to miss the next game against Akron. It was Bennett who was called on to lead the team as the third starter of the season.

He did not have a great game against the Zips, but the team was able to win in a much closer than anticipated matchup. Then, Salter returned to be with the team the next week at Old Dominion. When he was still hobbled by the groin injury, Freeze decided to go back to Bennett in the second half. Behind Bennett, Liberty would pull away from the Monarchs in the second half to pick up another win.

Wins followed the next two weeks with JB at starter, with the Flames knocking off UMass and Gardner-Webb as heavy favorites. Going into this week’s game against BYU, many expected and hoped for Charlie Brewer to be able to return to the field in the biggest game in school history.

Brewer was unable to get back to 100% this week, and he told Freeze after warmups that his hand was throbbing. Freeze knew then that it would have to be Bennett to carry the team if the Flames would win against BYU.

“He’s been with us for all four seasons,” Freeze said of Bennett. “He’s a mature young man. Quarterbacks are going to get criticized. We’ve been inconsistent. He’s been inconsistent to this point through the year, but I’ve seen him at times be really hot too. I’ve seen him practice. I do think that I probably freed him up more this week to make sure he loved the plan. I told him I believed in him. I texted him one night this week and said, ‘Dude, you can execute this plan. Just go believe it.’ Heck, I’ve been with quarterbacks that got criticized, criticized, criticized, but I want to say this, the bottom line for a quarterback is the overall win-loss record. I believe he is 4-0 as a starter. We will take the criticism and will deal with it and tell him to keep winning games.”

This season has followed the path of Bennett’s career at Liberty. He committed to the Flames under previous head coach Turner Gill, and had second thoughts on his decision after Gill retired during Bennett’s senior year of high school. After meeting with Coach Freeze, Bennett decided to stay true to his commitment and play at Liberty.

Playing behind Buckshot Calvert during his first year with the Flames, Bennett was content to be his backup and learn the offense, hoping to be able to win the starting job the following year. In the fourth game of the season, Bennett suffered a gruesome knee injury while celebrating with teammate Brandon Robinson on the sideline after Robinson had scored a touchdown. That injury forced JB to miss the rest of the 2019 campaign as he rehabbed with hopes of returning to the field in the spring of 2020.

During the offseason and entering the 2020 season, Bennett was hopeful to win the starting job. Those dreams came to an end following the transfer of Auburn quarterback Malik Willis and Maine transfer Chris Ferguson. Willis was named the starter just ahead of the season opener while Ferguson was named his backup. For Bennett, he was relegated to third string.

After two years of Willis at the helm, Bennett was once again hopeful to win the starting job once again entering the 2022 season. The competition for the job was increased when Brewer announced he was transferring to Liberty last December. Ultimately, it was the newcomer Brewer that won the job entering the year.

Throughout all these ups and downs, it would have been easy for Bennett to throw in the towel on Liberty and his teammates. He could have entered the transfer portal at any one of the setbacks he has faced throughout his college career. Bennett instead took the more challenging path, deciding to stay at LU and fight through the adversity and criticism he has faced.

Standing on the field Saturday night as the crowd stormed the field to celebrate with the team following the win against BYU, Bennett was thankful he decided to stay and Lynchburg and continue his career as a Flame.

“Honestly, I don’t know if it kicked in yet,” Bennett said of his emotions following the win against BYU. “I just feel like we just won a football game, but I don’t really think I will understand the magnitude of the game until I go back and lay down tonight and think that was the biggest win we ever had. It was awesome.”