For Liberty, the season comes to an end early for the first time at the FBS level. There will be no bowl game as the Flames finish at 4-8 overall. This marks the first time since 2005 when Ken Karcher was head coach that Liberty finishes a season with a losing record. This comes after head coach Jamey Chadwell led Liberty to a 13-1, CUSA Championship, and Fiesta Bowl appearance in 2023. Just last year, Liberty was 8-4 and advanced to a sixth straight bowl game. This year, the Flames dropped its first four games against FBS opponents before winning three consecutive in the middle of the season before finishing the year with four straight losses against Conference USA opponents.
When asked following the season ending loss to Kennesaw State at Williams Stadium Saturday night about what changes need to be made for the program to see improvement in 2026, Chadwell had this to say:
“From a personnel standpoint, you hope you can keep a lot of your returning guys. You hope they want to stay and help turn it around. Then we have to add—we need to add the right people to fill areas we need to improve. If we can hold on to the core group, I think we have young players who played a lot and who we feel solid about. Returning players have to be better detail-wise, practice-wise, mentality-wise. I have to take a big look at everything—scheme, offseason, weight room, all of it.”
“When you have a bad season like this, the inclination is to blow it all up. I’ve started looking back: we’ve lost four straight, five if you count Jacksonville State, and were in that game in the fourth quarter. We’re leading with 90 seconds in one, need a first down or a stop. We’re in three straight overtimes. Anything goes your way and things look different. You can’t blow it up just to blow it up. You have to identify what definitely needs improvement and what might already work but just needs to be done better. I’ve been thinking about that since we were 1-4, honestly. We’ll have player meetings next week, start working through that, get ready for the portal, have coaches meetings, and start figuring out the next steps.”
Early signing day for high school recruits is just a few days away, with Class of 2026 prospects able to sign their national letter of intent on Wednesday, December 3.
The transfer portal officially opens January 2 when players, including graduate transfers, can officially enter their names into the portal and initiate contact with other schools. In a change, this is the only transfer portal period for college football this coming season. It will be a 15-day window with the portal open until January 16.
For Chadwell, he will be looking answers to rebound from his first losing season as a head coach since 2019 when he was at Coastal Carolina and finished 5-7. Following that season, Chadwell and the Chanticleers posted two straight 11-win seasons and he was 43-7 as a head coach the next four seasons, concluding with the 13-1 campaign with the Flames in 2023.
“What made that group special, they were ticked off about 5-7 and weren’t going through that again,” Chadwell said about the Chanticleers and their turnaround. “As coaches, I have to fix the areas we need to fix in the offseason and the program. But the returning players need the mentality to play with a chip on their shoulder. We can fix everything, but if they don’t approach it with detail, it’s going to be the same. It has to be both—coaches doing their part, and players who want to win at a high level. I think we have the right makeup of guys if everyone returns. They won’t complain; they’ll find ways to win and get the edge. Coach (Teddy) Gallagher, who’s with me now (as an assistant coach), was the ringleader of that team you mentioned—he said, ‘We’re not going through that again,’ and made sure everyone was on the same page. I think we have some guys like that now who will return, hopefully, and I think that mentality will help us get where we want to go.”
I can detail what change needs to be made. Replace Chadwell as head coach. Every season has gotten worse since he took over. In addition I’ve watched him scream at his players out of anger on National TV. Coach Freeze never did that. That’s not Christian. He does not fit the culture and he is driving this team into the ground. You can’t recruit good players if the team is losing and players don’t like the coaching.
I could not disagree more…. we are blessed with an incredible coach who is a wonderful fit for LU…. He is a proven winner, he has a dedicated and talented loyal staff the kids enjoy playing for and most importantly, he loves and lives the mission of LU and will have many years of success here as the athletic program matures financially which is huge in the NIL world we are living in now.
We are not blessed with Chadwell. He makes up garbage excuses and doesn’t hold his players accountable. What was his reason for last years failure (and yes it was a failure).. “The guys just aren’t close enough” and talking about them no meshing. Total crap. The problem is you can’t recruit talent and you keep sticking with your game plan without making significant adjustments. The issue isn’t your team “not jelling”. Your issue is your players are bad… it’s just that simple.. when you are one of the worst teams in the worst fbs conference.. this means you have SERIOUS personnel issues. And you want to focus on your players focusing on the “details”? You do that when you have talent. We don’t have talent. We’ve consistently gotten worse year after year and we just keep making excuses. I’m starting to think our good year was thanks to Salter and that was it. Time to fire Chadwell. And if the fans don’t want to and Mccaw doesn’t want to, then we get what we deserve.. more losing seasons and being irrelevant in an irrelevant conference. The programs and fan bases who actually want to win do what it takes, including firing coaches. We are unwilling to do that because everyone is buddies. No accountability.
oh no, a football coach yelling at his players? what will we do. if anything, he is too soft on the players from what i see.
I am sure that coach is a fine man, but everything he said that needs to be looked at should have been looked at while they were losing. Also, the things he didn’t mention such as bad coaching and play calling during games doesn’t get mentioned. Those are totally on him as the head coach and unless that improves, nothing else he does is going to fix things. Finally, how can he improve recruiting? Very inadequate statement on his part, IMHO. Love the Flames and want them to do much, much, much better!
I think Hugh Freeze is available!