Liberty snatched victory from the jaws of defeat on Saturday afternoon in Amherst, Massachusetts, 35-34, in overtime to improve to 7-2 on the season. The win secures the Flames’ sixth consecutive season with 7+ victories and the 22nd in program history.
UMass had a chance to win the game on the last play of regulation, but Jacob Lurie’s 43-yard field goal missed just wide right, sending the game to overtime. In overtime, the Minutemen got into the end zone on just two plays to take the lead, but Lurie’s extra points would clang off the right upright and fall to the turf. It left the door wide open for the Flames to win, and Quinton Cooley would run right through that door.
The Liberty running back ran twice on a three-play overtime touchdown drive, punching it in from five yards out for his third touchdown of the night. Colin Karhu’s extra points would send Liberty to the walk-off win.
“It looked bleak,” said Liberty head coach Jamey Chadwell. “I knew the field goal would be challenging, because it was against the wind. The wind was pretty good there. I’m mad prior to that, we had the ball and a chance to go down put ourselves in chance for a field goal offensively. We’ve got to finish that. Then, defense, we’ve got to get them off the field. They had a chance, they missed it. Then they went right down the field. For him, it hit that upright. Once we got out there offensively, we got the ball to Cooley and we knew he would get us a touchdown. It was much needed. I’m still ticked off about the first half.”
Cooley finished the game with 147 yards on 20 carries, his 14th career 100-yard game and seventh of the season. He scored three of Liberty’s five touchdowns. Quarterback Kaidon Salter would score the other two, rushing 13 times for 48 yards. He also completed 9 of 16 passes for 114 yards.
Both team’s ground games dominated the offensive yards. Liberty surpassed 300 yards rushing for the second straight game, finishing with 309. UMass, who came into the game rushing for 143.2 yards per game, finished the day with a season best 263 yards and four rushing touchdowns.
As for the first half that had Coach Chadwell ticked off? UMass, just 2-7 entering the season and winless against FBS competition, dominated the Flames on the ground. The Minutemen entered the contest with a season high 199 yards rushing, but they surpassed that number in the opening 30 minutes against the Flames, running for 203 yards.
Two year starting quarterback for UMass, Taisun Phommachanh was injured in their last game two weeks ago at Mississippi State and lost for the season. It left two freshmen with very limited playing experience entering Saturday as the quarterbacks for the Minutemen. Coach Don Brown would be content to freely rotate AJ Hairston and Ahmad Haston throughout the game and rely heavily on the ground game.
Due in large part to the ground game and helped by two Liberty turnovers, the Minutemen led 20-7 at the intermission. It had many on the Liberty side thinking back to first half deficits by multiple scores earlier this season against New Mexico State and East Carolina. The Flames were able to come back to win both of those contests.
Liberty was able to turn it around in the second half. The Flames would score on their opening drive, to cut the lead to 20-14. Meanwhile, the defense was able to make some adjustments and forced two straight three and outs for the UMass offense in the second half.
“It wasn’t schematically,” Chadwell said of the defensive changes. “Our defense has to learn. We didn’t tackle well. They’ve got to learn how to play with the same consistent intensity. We can’t play, ‘Oh, their starting quarterback is out, they’re not going to be as good.’ There’s good football players all across the country. It wasn’t a schematic change, it was more of a heart change, a mindset change”
The win marks Liberty’s sixth straight head to head victory over UMass, improving to 6-1 all-time against the Minutemen. Coach Chadwell also improves to 5-0 all-time against UMass. He also picked up his 20th victory at Liberty, coming in 23 games. He’s the fastest coach in program history to win 20 games, the previous fastest coach to reach 20 wins was Hugh Freeze, doing so in 26 games.
“I’m excited about the win, but one of those that it reminded me of the first six games,” Chadwell said. “I told the group, ‘If that’s who you want to be, we might as well pack it up the rest of the season and not play another game.’ We can’t play to the level of competition. We’ve got to play to the standard. I thought we practiced well, but you’ve got to come out and mentally be ready to go. I have to do a better job that falls back on me getting them ready to play. We came out with better intensity in the second half. I’ve got to get us to come out in the first half with that same intensity.”
The Flames have now faced a deficit in all nine contests this season, being able to come from behind to pick up the victory in seven of those contests. Liberty also concludes its regular season non-conference portion of its schedule with an unblemished 3-0 mark. It marks the second straight season the Flames have gone unbeaten out of conference during the regular season, becoming the first CUSA team to accomplish that feat in back to back seasons since TCU did so in 2002-03.
Liberty returns to conference play for the final two weeks of the regular season, and the Flames now control their own destiny to reach the CUSA Championship Game. After Western Kentucky lost at home to Louisiana Tech, 12-7, on Saturday afternoon, the Flames can reach the conference title game with in their final two games beginning next Saturday against the Hilltoppers in Lynchburg for Senior Day.
*photo courtesy Liberty University Athletics
