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On New Year’s Day, Liberty University’s football team will play in and possibly win a major bowl game, but more importantly, its players, coaches, and fans will have a chance to show Christ to millions.
The day after New Year’s 2023, Tulane University shocked the college football world when it rallied from 16 points down with less than 5 minutes left to play to beat the storied USC Trojans and win the Cotton Bowl.
Now, a year later, Liberty has a chance to not only shock the world but to do much, much more.
Dr. Jerry Falwell Sr., the founder of Liberty University, always planned on the school competing at the top tier of college athletics. “My dream was to raise up a world-class university that would compare favorably with what Brigham Young and Notre Dame provide for Mormon and Roman Catholic young people, a world-class university; academically excellent, athletically competing at the highest level in the NCAA,” Falwell once stated.
He went on to explain, “It’s our plan to have our athletic program comparable to USC, to Notre Dame, to Alabama, to anybody in time.”
Liberty hasn’t reached that last goal yet, but Falwell’s overall vision is quickly becoming reality. Liberty moved to the NCAA Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the sport’s highest level of competition, six years ago and became a full member with bowl eligibility in 2019. Since that time Liberty has reached a bowl game four times, winning three. On New Year’s Day, it will play its fifth bowl game on one of college football’s grandest stages.
The Flames, ranked 23rd in the College Football Playoff rankings, will be lining up against 8th-ranked Oregon in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona. The Fiesta Bowl is one of the “New Year’s Six,” the moniker given to college football’s six most prestigious bowl games. These also include the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton, and Peach Bowls. These very names bear the weight of college football’s long history, the fields where its greatest teams and greatest players make their mark.
It has been such a fast rise for Liberty, which went undefeated this season and won the Conference USA championship, that even its first-year head coach, Jamey Chadwell, was shocked. He recently confessed,
“If you would have said a year ago, taking this job, that this would have happened in the first year, I would have said, ‘No shot.’ But that’s a credit to the players, obviously. With man, it’s impossible, but with the Lord, anything is possible. It’s been amazing the favor that He has shown us through some challenges.”
Chadwell’s statement is pivotal in Liberty’s program. While most universities are secular, everything Liberty does is with the goal of training champions for Christ and bringing God the glory.
Oregon is expected to win the game easily. Yet as college football has shown so many times, prognostications are not victories.
College football is known for its upsets, its chaos. Bowl games, which occur weeks after the season ends and around the holidays and which are often plagued by players opting out of the games or transferring to different schools, are always ripe for such chaos. It was in the Fiesta Bowl that one of the sport’s most famous upsets took place — when Boise State defeated Oklahoma on a last-second trick “Statue of Liberty” play, followed by the player who scored the touchdown proposing to his cheerleader girlfriend.
Those who saw last year’s Cotton Bowl witnessed not only a relatively small football program defeat one of the largest but also an improbable come-from-behind victory. Tulane was down by 16 points with 4 minutes and 7 seconds left to play. As ESPN Stats and Information noted, in the previous five seasons, teams had won just 1 out of 1,693 games when trailing by 15 or more points with five minutes or less left to play. Tulane made it two.
The Flames now have their own chance to shock the world. They also have a chance to do something much more important — to point Oregon’s players and those watching the game to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Athletics give Christians a unique chance to glorify God. Humility in victory, graciousness in defeat, dedication to hard work, and showing love to teammates and opponents all help Christians to proclaim Christ in the uniquely bonding area of athletic competition. Sports also provide an opportunity to connect with others with a similar interest and to build relationships that allow for the sharing of the Gospel.
Take, for example, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). This Christ-centered ministry recently reported that from September 2022 to August 2023 FCA distributed over 230,000 Bibles, more than 100,000 people attended FCA camps, and 51,730 people professed faith in Christ as Lord of their lives.
On New Year’s Day, Liberty’s athletic program will have a shot at reaching millions for Christ.
During the 2021-2022 season, the New Year’s Six bowl games that were not part of the College Football Playoff averaged 10.7 million viewers. The Fiesta Bowl, which featured 5th-ranked Notre Dame and 9th-ranked Oklahoma State had an average of 8 million viewers. The viewers peaked at 14.3 million as the game was in its final minutes of play. Perhaps those numbers are somewhat ambitious for the Liberty-Oregon matchup. Maybe a more realistic expectation would be Tulane’s victory over USC. No. 16 Tulane, which like Liberty is not a member of one of college football’s “Power 5” conferences, and No. 10 USC drew over 4.1 million viewers last season.
Whether it’s 20 million or 2 million, Liberty is going to play in front of America. The Flames will have an opportunity to represent Christ before millions of people.
Liberty Director of Athletics Ian McCaw said that being able to play in such a high-profile game provides a platform and a reach unlike anything Liberty has experienced before, explaining,
“We need to really savor this. These types of opportunities do not come along very often so it’s a time to be grateful. God’s hands have really been upon this football program throughout the season. The vision was cast 50-plus years ago by Dr. Falwell to play football at this level (and) it doesn’t get any higher than playing in the Fiesta Bowl, which is one of America’s great bowl games. We want to put our best foot forward on Jan. 1.”
I will, of course, be eagerly hoping for a Liberty victory, but more than that I will be praying that Liberty’s players, coaches, and fans will well represent not just their school but Christ, who, as we know from Ephesians 3:20, “is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.”
So, go Flames! But, win or lose, may God’s will be done and may He get all the glory and all the praise.
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