The 2019 college football regular season is in the books and there are 79 bowl eligible teams, Liberty included, for 78 bowl slots.
You don’t have to be a math whiz to figure out there will be one bowl eligible team left home with the final pairings are announced next Sunday, December 8th.
With Liberty’s secondary agreement with the Cure Bowl, the December 21st bowl game in Orlando is looking like the Flames’ most likely destination should Liberty get the call. Cure Bowl Executive Director Alan Gooch was in Lynchburg on Saturday to watch the Flames become bowl eligible. We asked him about the odds Liberty had of making the Cure Bowl. You can listen to that full interview here:
The Cure Bowl pits a Sun Belt vs an AAC team. The Sun Belt will fill its Cure Bowl slot, and Liberty’s best chance to get into the Cure Bowl would be if the AAC cannot fill its slot. That happens if the AAC champ is the highest rated Group of Five team in next week’s College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings.
Memphis and Cincinnati will play in the AAC Championship Game on Friday, and Liberty fans will be Memphis Tigers fans this week. Memphis is currently holding the honor of being the highest ranked G5 team, but barely. Boise State entered the week just two spots behind them.
If Memphis defeats Cincinnati to win the AAC Championship, the Tigers will likely be moving on to the Cotton Bowl, and the AAC will not be able to fill its Cure Bowl slot. If that happens, Liberty will be chosen to play in the Cure Bowl due to the Flames’ secondary bowl agreement with the Cure Bowl.
Even if the AAC champ does not make it to the Cotton Bowl, there’s still a chance Liberty gets a bowl invitation elsewhere. Most bowl pundits are projecting one of the 6-6 MAC teams to be the one left out of the dance.
There are currently two bowl projections which have been updated following this week’s action. College Football News projects Liberty into the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl. The Action Network has Liberty in the Cure Bowl and Kent State as the team left out.
For now, we must wait until next Sunday to find out Liberty’s final destination, but we will keep you updated throughout the week.
