Immediately following Liberty’s win on Friday night over New Mexico State to secure the 2023 Conference USA Championship and finish the year 13-0, Flames’ head coach Jamey Chadwell had a very clear message for the College Football Playoff Committee.
“If you’ve watched us for 13 weeks, we are the best G5 team in this country,” Chadwell said. “Six wins over bowl teams. Our average margin of victory is 17 points. We have dominated our opponents. We belong in that New Year’s Six.”
If Liberty is the highest ranked Group of Five Conference Champion in Sunday’s final CFP Top 25 poll, the Flames will be the G5 representative in a New Year’s Six Bowl.
The Flames entered championship weekend as the second highest ranked G5 team. Liberty was ranked No. 24 in this week’s CFP Top 25, only trailing Tulane who is No. 22. Tulane will take on SMU in the American Athletic Conference Championship on Saturday at 4 p.m.
After the game in his post game press conference, Chadwell went into a little more detail as to why Liberty should be the top ranked G5 team.
“You’ve got 13 wins,” said Chadwell. “Our average margin of victory versus bowl eligible teams (is 16.5). We beat six bowl eligible teams, that’s the highest G5 in the country, nobody else is above four currently. 13 up, 13 down. Six teams you beat are going to bowl games, one of those teams you beat twice went to SEC country and hammered an SEC team who turned around and gave a miracle or they would have beat a team who’s considered for a Playoff team.”
“Our team has earned the right to be in there regardless of what happens tomorrow,” Chadwell continued. “If you go all 13 weeks, match us up against who we are competing against for that spot, all the measurables, all the margins of victory, people we’ve beat that are bowl eligible, we have more wins, move margin of victory, and we’ve dominated the last six weeks we’ve played games. We finished and dominated those.”
The Flames will finish the season as the only 13-0 Group of Five conference champion as the other four champions will all end the season with at least one defeat.
Tulane is Liberty’s toughest competition, obviously. If they defeat SMU for the AAC title on Saturday, they will likely end up as the highest ranked G5 conference champ and receive the NY6 bowl bid. But should they?
The Green Wave would have five wins over bowl eligible teams with a win Saturday and their average margin of victory in those games is 8.75. They also have a loss even though it came against Ole Miss.
SMU could also make an argument if they knock off Toledo for the AAC Championship. They do have two losses coming against Oklahoma and 5-7 TCU. The Mustangs currently have just two wins over bowl eligible teams, coming by an average of 4.5 points.
Toledo is the other team also attempting to make a case for the NY6 bowl. The Rockets take on Miami Ohio on Saturday in the MAC Championship Game. They are currently 11-1 with their loss coming in the season opener at Illinois, 30-28. They currently have five wins over bowl eligible teams.
What will the CFP Committee decide? We will find out Sunday.
