For the second time in four games this season, Liberty will hit the road as an underdog.
The Flames opened as 1.5-point underdogs to Coastal Carolina for Thursday night’s matchup in Conway, according to the early betting line. Coastal Carolina is currently listed as a 1.5-point favorite, with the over/under at 53.5 points.
The game is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Brooks Stadium and will be nationally televised on ESPN as the only FBS college football game on Thursday.
Liberty enters the matchup coming off its most impressive performance of the season, a 51-15 demolition of Ball State that provided a much-needed response after the Flames narrowly escaped Gardner-Webb the previous week.
Coastal, meanwhile, enters the game looking to make a statement of its own coming off a 22-14 loss at Delaware.
But this matchup is about more than the current teams.
Liberty and Coastal Carolina have a long history together, dating back to their days as Big South rivals. The two programs met 14 times between 2003 and 2016, with many of those games having major implications in the conference race. Liberty currently leads the all-time series 8-7. The most recent meeting came in the 2020 Cure Bowl, when the Flames defeated the No. 9 Chanticleers 37-34 in overtime after Elijah James blocked a potential game-winning field goal when Jamey Chadwell was roaming the sidelines as head coach of the Chanticleers.
Thursday’s game will be the first regular-season meeting between the programs since both made the move to the FBS level.
This will be a particularly interesting night for Liberty head coach Jamey Chadwell, who spent five seasons as Coastal Carolina’s head coach before taking over at Liberty in 2023. Chadwell transformed Coastal into one of the most successful Group of Five programs in the country, leading the Chanticleers to two 11-win seasons and a 39-22 record during his time in Conway.
When Chadwell left for Liberty, he didn’t leave alone. Several members of his Coastal staff followed him to Lynchburg, including Willy Korn, Newland Isaac, Bill Durkin and Cody Ladutko, while Tony Washington also returned to Chadwell’s staff after previously coaching at Coastal.
That makes Thursday’s game a reunion of sorts for much of Liberty’s coaching staff. It also gives the game an added emotional element that simply wouldn’t exist between two unfamiliar opponents. Chadwell will be back on the sideline at Brooks Stadium for the first time since leaving Coastal, and he’ll bring with him many of the coaches who helped build the Chanticleers into a national story.
The 1.5-point line makes this a much different proposition than Liberty’s season opener at James Madison, when the Flames entered as 6.5-point underdogs. Liberty ultimately lost that game 20-13, but the Flames have since responded with wins over Gardner-Webb and Ball State, including Saturday’s 36-point victory over the Cardinals.
Now Liberty gets another opportunity to pick up a significant road win. The Flames will be looking to carry the momentum from their best offensive performance of the season into a Thursday night atmosphere in Conway. And with the history between these programs, the return of Chadwell and much of his former staff, and the all-time series separated by just one game, this feels like considerably more than another non-conference game.
It’s a rivalry that has been waiting to return. And on Thursday night, it finally does.
