We are still less than three months away from the 2025 college football season kicking off. Every team has questions they are looking for answers to, and that includes Liberty. Rosters are starting to come together with the transfer portal closed and players making their decisions for next season.
The Flames are looking to recapture some of the magic from the 2023 CUSA Championship team while getting back to another bowl game. The Flames finished the 2024 campaign with an 8-4 record that included a loss to Buffalo in the Bahamas Bowl. It marked a sixth straight appearance in a bowl game, and Liberty has now won eight or more games for the 16th season in program history, including six straight years. Liberty will open the 2025 season on Saturday, Aug. 30 against Campbell at Williams Stadium in Lynchburg, Virginia, and there have been a couple of way too early bowl projections released already.
Both Athlon Sports and 247Sports have released their early projections and they both have Liberty headed to the same, new destination – the Hawaii Bowl, featuring teams from CUSA and the Mountain West. Athlon has the Flames playing Hawaii while 247Sports have Liberty facing Air Force.
As for bowl tie-ins, first off, the Conference USA champion will be in the mix for a spot in the expanded College Football Playoff. If the CUSA champ is the highest ranked Group of Five champion it will receive an automatic berth into the 12-team CFP. For the rest of the bowls, CUSA doesn’t have a true pecking order of bowl picks. Instead, the bowls are picked based off a number of factors including geography and best possible matchups.
Here are the bowls where Conference USA has a primary selection:
Bahamas Bowl
Nassau, Bahamas vs MAC
New Orleans Bowl
New Orleans, Louisiana vs Sun Belt
Frisco Bowl
Frisco, Texas vs G5 TBD
Hawaii Bowl
Honolulu, Hawaii vs Mountain West
If CUSA has additional bowl eligible teams, there are also a number of bowls where CUSA teams can be selected as a secondary team:
68 Ventures Bowl vs MAC or Sun Belt
Birmingham Bowl vs AAC or SEC
Boca Raton Bowl vs G5
Camellia Bowl vs MAC or Sun Belt
Cure Bowl vs G5
Fenway Bowl vs AAC or AAC
Gasparilla Bowl vs ACC, AAC, SEC
Armed Forces Bowl vs AAC
Myrtle Beach Bowl vs AAC, MAC or Sun Belt
New Mexico Bowl vs Mountain West
Independence Bowl vs Army or Big 12
First Responder Bowl vs G5
Liberty’s bowl history (3-3)
2019: Cure Bowl, W vs Georgia Southern, 23-16
2020: Cure Bowl, W vs #12 Coastal Carolina, 37-34 OT
2021: LendingTree Bowl, W vs Eastern Michigan, 56-20
2022: Boca Raton Bowl, L vs Toledo, 21-19
2023: Fiesta Bowl, L vs #8 Oregon, 45-6
2024: Bahamas Bowl, L vs Buffalo, 26-7
