Conference USA announced its 2023 Players of the Year Wednesday, as selected by the league’s nine head football coaches, and Liberty cleaned up.
QB Kaidon Salter was selected as the CUSA Most Valuable Player, LB Tyren Dupree earned CUSA Defensive Player of the Year honors, and RB Quinton Cooley was named CUSA Newcomer of the Year.
Additionally, Liberty’s Jamey Chadwell was named CUSA Co-Coach of the Year, earning the honor alongside New Mexico State’s Jerry Kill.
This group has helped lead the Flames to an unprecedented 13-0 overall record and perfect 8-0 mark in the program’s first ever season in CUSA. Liberty is ranked No. 18 in the latest Associated Press Top 25 Poll while also being ranked No. 20 in the Coaches Poll and No. 23 in the most recent College Football Playoff Top 25 poll.
The Flames have finished the program’s first ever undefeated regular season and have set the program record for most wins in a single season with 13. Liberty is also currently riding the program’s longest ever win streak of 13 straight.
Salter has completed 162 of 266 passes for 2,750 yards, 31 touchdowns, and 5 interceptions. He’s also rushed 153 times for 1,064 yards and 12 additional scores. He owns the program single season records for passing touchdowns and touchdowns responsible for. He is one of five FBS quarterbacks responsible for 40 or more touchdowns this season.
“I don’t know what expectations for Kaidon I had coming into this season,” said Chadwell of Salter. “I’m not going to say they were out of the roof, they weren’t based off the spring and going into the summer. Once he got into fall camp and he won the job, your expectations, you want him to go out and lead your team and hopefully help you to victory. He has by far exceeded those things, obviously, sitting here at 12-0. His improvement on the field, more importantly off the field, is a major reason why we are sitting where we’re at right now. We would not be here without his improvement that he made.”
Dupree anchored a defensive unit that forced 25 turnovers, good enough for second most in the country, and 21 interceptions, the most in the FBS. Dupree enters the VRBO Fiesta Bowl with 115 tackles, 8 tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks, a fumble recovery, two interceptions, three pass breakups and six quarterback hurries. He ranks 27th nationally in total tackles with 8.9 per game.
Cooley led CUSA in rushing as he carried the ball 213 times for 1,322 yards and 16 touchdowns. The Wake Forest transfer paced the nation’s top rushing attack and had seven games with 100 or more rushing yards and five games with multiple touchdowns. He had three rushing scores in Liberty’s win over New Mexico State in the 2023 CUSA Championship Game.
The Flames boast the nation’s top rushing offense (302.9 yards per game), third best total offense (514.9 yards per game) and the nation’s fifth-best scoring offense (40.8 points per game), while also intercepting the most passes in the country (21), forcing the second most turnovers in FBS (25) and allowing just 22.2 points per game. Chadwell and his team heads to the VRBO Fiesta Bowl to take on No. 8 Oregon (11-2) on Monday, Jan. 1, at 1 p.m. on ESPN.
