Liberty has announced it’s non-conference football schedule for the 2023 football season, in which will be the first for the Flames in Conference USA. The schedule features three home games and one road trip out of conference. When the CUSA releases the conference portion of the schedule, the Flames will have seven home games and play five away from Williams Stadium.
The Flames’ non-conference schedule features home dates against Bowling Green, Old Dominion, and UMass and a road trip to Buffalo. For the first time as a Division I program, Liberty will not play an FCS school in 2023. This will also mark the first time the Flames will not play a Power Five opponent since moving to FBS and first time overall since 2013.
Liberty will open the season on Sept. 2 against Bowling Green. The Flames will play their only non-conference game away from Lynchburg on Sept. 16 at Buffalo. On Sept. 30, in-state foe Old Dominion comes to Lynchburg, and the Flames will conclude non-conference play on Nov. 18 against UMass at Williams Stadium.
“It’s been a lot of work, primarily on (Associate Athletic Director) Mickey (Guridy) and then Dave Brown from Gridiron has been really helpful with that,” said Liberty Athletic Director Ian McCaw in an exclusive interview with ASOR. “We’ve had to make a lot of changes. In 2023, with Conference USA, we will play 12 Group of Five games for the first time so that will be a different schedule. A lot of work to do to get from 12 down to four non-conference games.”
Liberty will also play eight CUSA games, four at home and four on the road, with dates and locations to be announced later. The Flames will play Louisiana Tech, Florida International, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, UTEP, New Mexico State, Jacksonville State, and Sam Houston in conference matchups.
With Liberty’s move to Conference USA beginning with the 2023 season, the Flames must purge their schedule to make room for eight conference games. Over the past several months, we have seen games against UCF, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia Southern, Miami (OH), and Virginia be moved or canceled.
The full 2023 schedule was originally released by Liberty in May 2020 before the move was made to Conference USA. Games against Miami (OH), South Carolina, Virginia had been scrubbed from the schedule over the past several months. Today’s announcement also has games at Coastal Carolina and home dates with Eastern Michigan, ETSU, and UConn removed from the 2023 schedule. We could see some of those moved to future years or they have perhaps been canceled altogether.
