The Liberty Flames head to the Land of Enchantment for their first of two consecutive games in New Mexico, beginning this Saturday against the Lobos of the University of New Mexico. The meeting will mark the first ever between the two opponents and Liberty’s first ever against a Mountain West opponent.

The Lobos are 2-1 and are coming off a bye week which was preceded by their first win over rival New Mexico State since 2015. In that game, New Mexico fell behind 17-7 in the first quarter, before responding with 28 unanswered points to seize control of the game.

Former Notre Dame head coach Bob Davie is in his 7th season at New Mexico. He is 32-46 at UNM and guided the Lobos to bowl games in 2015 and 2016. He took over a program that was 3-33 in the 3 seasons prior to his arrival, and quickly turned the program around.

The game will mark the 8th time in program history that Liberty has traveled more than 1,000 miles from Lynchburg and the 4th ever game played in the Mountain time zone.

“It’s exciting,” Coach Gill said of the travel. “We have an opportunity to go on the west coast almost, to go across the country to play two road games. That’s a challenge, but it’s exciting to let the people across the country know what Liberty football is all about.”

He also said he doesn’t want to make the travel issue a bigger deal than it is.

On offense, New Mexico has a new offensive coordinator this season in Calvin Magee. Magee is a protege of Rich Rodriguez, working under him at West Virginia, Michigan, and Arizona. They will lineup similar to how Liberty does on offense, but they can run option, and even some triple option, out of a spread type look. They’ve added RPOs to their option football package which makes it difficult for perimeter defenders to defend the pitch and a receiver at the same time. Another typical look from Magee’s offense is a gun split formation, where the quarterback is in the shotgun and two running backs lined up alongside him in the backfield. The Lobos run the option, but they’re not afraid to throw the ball as well.

Their starting quarterback entering the season was Tevaka Tuioti. He excelled in the first game of the season against Incarnate Word, as he finished the game 18-for-29 passing with 5 touchdowns through the air and 1 rushing touchdown. Tuioti followed that up with an impressive opening drive against Wisconsin that led to a touchdown, but he took a helmet to the chest in the first half against the Badgers and suffered a concussion. That forced him to miss the rest of that game and the New Mexico State game. He returned to practice on Monday and is expected to make the start this weekend. Before his injury, Tuioti had 437 total yards and 6 touchdowns in just 5 full quarters of play.

Sheriron Jones was listed as the 3rd quarterback on the depth chart entering the season, but after injuries to Tuioti and the 2nd string QB in the first two games, Jones was thrown into the mix against Wisconsin. He also made the start against New Mexico State. Jones is a senior transfer from Tennessee that also attended a JUCO before ending up at UNM. Against the Badgers, he was 9-for-16 passing for 79 yards and 2 interceptions. Against New Mexico State, Jones was 12-for-19 passing for 127 yards and 1 interception.

“Tevaka started the regular season,” Gill said of the Lobos QBs. “He can run, he can throw. He might be a little bit better on his accuracy than Jones. They run all types of power runs, power options. They’ve been very successful offensively.”

Liberty defensive coordinator Robert Wimberly said he wouldn’t be surprised if both quarterbacks play Saturday.

The Lobos also have a strong rushing attack, led by Tyrone Owens and Ahmari Davis, who have combined for over 340 rushing yards and 7 touchdowns in the first 3 games of the season. Davis had 4 touchdowns against New Mexico State alone. This duo combined for 51 rushes, 184 yards, and 5 touchdowns against the Aggies.

New Mexico’s rushing attack led the country in 2016 in rushing yards per game, averaging 350 yards rushing. This year, that number is down to 198 yards per game as the Lobos look to become a more balanced offensive attack out of the spread option look.

To say that Liberty is familiar with New Mexico’s defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove would be quite the understatement. Cosgrove was the defensive coordinator at Nebraska from 2004-07. During the 2004 season, Turner Gill was also on staff at Nebraska as were current Liberty assistants Scott Downing and Aaron Stamn. Current Liberty offensive coordinator Joe Dailey was the quarterback on that 2004 Cornhusker football team. Stamn has a very close relationship with Cosgrove, who is actually a relative of his.

“Kevin Cosgrove is the reason I’m a college football coach,” Stamn recalled earlier this week. “He’s my wife’s uncle. He is my first mentor in the business. I love him to death. He’s the guy that I’ve always respected. I love him because he’s taught me the way how to do things. It’s going to be fun. I’m looking forward to going against him. Our families are getting together out there. Mine is making the trip. I know a couple of his kids will be there too.”

Saturday will be the first time this pair has ever coached against one another.

On defense, the Lobos have struggled, allowing over 500 yards of offense and 33.3 points per game, and this week they will have to do it without Alex Hart. Hart leads the team with 19 tackles this season as a starter at middle linebacker. It was announced earlier this week that is out for the season with a torn ACL. Davie describes Hart as the coach on the field for the Lobos’ defense. His position is very vital to what they do.

The defense is opportunistic as they forced 5 interceptions in the win against New Mexico State, tying a school record. The Lobos are 13-0 when winning the turnover battle dating back to 2014.

Gill is challenging quarterback Buckshot Calvert to have a completion percentage of 62% or higher this weekend. After starting strong with a 69.44% completion percentage in the opener against Old Dominion, Buckshot has gone backwards in each game since. Against Army, that number dipped to 51.35% and last week against North Texas it was just 41%.

“We have to start fast so we can support our defense,” Dailey said. “Our defense does a good job when we’re doing a really good job. When we’re not doing our part and we’re asking them to do double duty, it’s not good. You can’t ask our defense to be on the field a lot of snaps because you’re going 3 & out or 6 & out.”

Against North Texas, Liberty’s special teams had one of its worse days in recent memory. Kicker Aaron Peart missed his only field goal attempt and had a kickoff go out of bounds. Punter Aidan Alves averaged just 20.7 yards on 7 punts. Obviously, there’s nowhere to go but up from that performance. On this week’s depth chart, an “OR” was added after Peart’s name as starting kicker as Stuart Ashley could also get a shot. Gill emphasized his confidence in Alves, saying everyone has a bad game and there’s no panic. The Flames are still without kicker Alex Probert, who was slated to miss at least the first 4 weeks of the season. Gill has said he will be re-evaluated in October.

The need for consistency from the Flames to compete at the FBS level is paramount. On occasions, the team has looked like it could compete with Army and North Texas, but a few lapses here and there have been the difference between the game being decided in the 4th quarter and a blowout.

Through the first 3 games, the offense has been successful in spurts. In the opener against Old Dominion, the Flames started the game with consecutive scoring drives followed 6 scoreless drives. Liberty then finished the game with 6 straight scoring drives to end the game. This was a similar trend against Army when Liberty was scoreless on 6 first half possessions, but opened the 2nd half with back-to-back scoring drives that were followed by 4 scoreless drives. Despite only one scoring drive against North Texas, the Flames best two scoring drives were on consecutive possessions, one that ended in an interception at the goal line and the following drive that ended in Liberty’s only touchdown on the evening.

As the offense’s play caller, Dailey took responsibility for his units inconsistency. “As a play caller, I need to be consistent. Consistency is the most difficult part of the game of football.”

The same can be said for the defense, where Wimberly has said his unit has yet to put together a full 4 quarters of solid football.

Prediction

New Mexico 36, Liberty 28

This is a game that can be won by either team. The biggest disadvantage for the Flames is that New Mexico is coming off a bye week which allowed them to get healthy and the travel distance. Liberty is 0-3 all time when playing in the Mountain time zone and just 2-5 when playing more than 1,000 miles from Lynchburg. The game could be a shootout though as both teams are averaging more than 400 yards per game on offense, and, at the same time, allowing more than 400 yards to opposing teams.