Liberty surrendered a 20-6 lead only to make a fourth quarter comeback punctuated by Evan Dickens’ 8-yard touchdown run with 36 seconds remaining to push the Flames past New Mexico State, 30-27, Tuesday night in front of 16,312 fans at Williams Stadium in Lynchburg, Virginia. With the win, Liberty improved its record to 3-4 overall and 2-1 in conference play while the Aggies drop to 3-3 and 1-2.
After the offense struggled much of the night and was held scoreless in the third quarter, the Flames took the field at their own eight-yard line with 3:46 left on the clock. QB Ethan Vasko completed all seven of his passing attempts on the 13-play, 92-yard drive, setting up an eight-yard rushing touchdown by Evan Dickens with 36 seconds left to put the Flames up by three. Donte Lee, who finished the night with six receptions for 55 yards, had five catches for 49 yards on the game-winning drive.
“I’ll give that whole group credit,” said Liberty head coach Jamey Chadwell of his offense on the last drive. “We didn’t have a dropped pass, a missed assignment, or a misalignment. Everybody did what they were supposed to do, when the previous whole second half we had mistake after mistake. Those guys locked in when they needed to.”
The Aggies tried to mount one last scoring effort and got into field goal range following a 32-yard pass from Logan Fife to Gavin Harris. It set up a 47-yard field goal attempt as time expired, but Ryan Hawk missed wide left, allowing Liberty to secure the victory.
“We can’t have prosperity, obviously, from the first half,” said Chadwell following the game. “I can say that. I guess we wanted to keep the TV and the gamblers in there watching the whole game there for the second half, but we’ll take the win. I’m very pleased that we got a win. I thought for the most part, the first half we did a fantastic job in all three phases. And then the second half couldn’t have went worse. We looked like a completely different team. But our guys are resilient. They kept believing. We challenged them all week to keep believing — believing in themselves, believing, don’t go after the outcome, just keep fighting for each other.”
The fourth-quarter comeback is the first for the Flames since Nov. 16, 2024 at UMass when Liberty trailed 28-21 before tying the game in regulation and ultimately winning, 35-34, in overtime. The Flames improve to 7-2 all-time against New Mexico State, winning four in a row in the series since the two teams moved to Conference USA. The Aggies are the first FBS opponent Liberty has defeated seven times.
“It looked dark there,” Chadwell said. “We were able to get a stop and go 92 yards. Obviously, it was huge when we didn’t — I don’t know if we had 92 yards of offense in the second half, right? So we were very bad offensively. But to be able to find a way to get a win and go to 2-1 in the conference when it looked ugly, we’ll take that. The positive is you can show a first half where you did some good things and say, if we can just do this consistently for four quarters, if we can put one together, then you like your chances to continue to get better, we’ll take it.”
NMSU outgained Liberty, 388-293, for the game, but the Flames took advantage of two New Mexico State muffed punts, scoring 10 points off those turnovers. Liberty’s Juju Gray also returned a kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown and Jay Billingsley made all three of his field goal attempts as the special teams units shined in the win. Gray had 197 all-purpose yards (26 rushing, 41 receiving, 130 kick return) which are tied for the most in a game under head coach Jamey Chadwell and most since Quinton Cooley’s 197 yards against Louisiana Tech on Nov. 4, 2023.
Liberty’s lead was 17-3 in the second quarter and 20-6 at halftime. The Flames got the ball to begin the second half and moved towards midfield before Vasko was sacked and fumbled. The Aggies took advantage, scoring a touchdown off the Liberty turnover. It sparked a run of 21 unanswered points by the visitors as they scored a touchdown their first three drives of the second half to seize all the momentum with a 27-20 advantage in the fourth quarter. After taking that lead, the Aggies forced Liberty to punt early in the fourth quarter, but the ball was muffed for a second time on the night. The Flames recovered at the NMSU 14 and a Billingsley field goal a few plays later cut the deficit to 27-23 with 8:21 remaining and quelled the Aggies momentum.
Looking for points on a fourth straight offensive possession, New Mexico State quickly moved the ball into Liberty territory. Facing a third and 5 at the Flames’ 39, Logan Fife’s deep pass to the left was incomplete. After initially hesitating, head coach Tony Sanchez sent his punt team onto the field. Max Dean’s 31 yard punt was fair caught by Reese Smith at the 8 to set up the game winning Liberty drive.
“Being down 20-6 at half, we knew we felt we were more physical up front,” said NMSU head coach Tony Sanchez. “We knew we just needed to lean into the run game a little bit, settle down, and make some stops on defense. We got the turnover early. We got ourselves back into the game, made it a seven-point game. Then we tied the game up and then took the lead. We had all of the momentum. We don’t finish off that drive in five minutes. Then we give up a long one at the end. Towards the end we give up that fumble punt and again that was the nail in the coffin. We
did everything we could to give that game away tonight.”
Vasko completed 20 of 30 passes for 179 yards while adding 19 yards on eight carries. He struggled with turnovers on the night as he threw two interceptions and also lost a fumble. Returning to the lineup after missing last week’s UTEP game with a concussion, Evan Dickens rushed 13 times for 50 yards and two touchdowns. He scored the game winning touchdown from eight yards out with just 36 seconds remaining. He is the first Liberty player this season with two rushing touchdowns in a game.
The Flames have 17 days off before returning to the field on Saturday, Nov. 1 against Delaware from Williams Stadium. The Blue Hens are currently 3-2 in their first year in Conference USA and at the FBS level, but they play two games before making the trip to Lynchburg beginning Wednesday night at Jacksonville State in a game scheduled to kick off at 7 p.m. on ESPN.
