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PROVO — Hugh Freeze had a simple message when he met with his Liberty football team Monday in preparation for the Flames' home game Saturday afternoon against BYU (1:30 p.m. MDT, ESPNU).
It had little to do with the team's 6-1 record, a mark that leaves them bowl-eligible after seven weeks along with just 15 other teams in college football.
It wasn't about who would start at quarterback, though usual starter Charlie Brewer returned to practice by Tuesday while recovering from surgery to repair a broken hand suffered in the season opener against Southern Miss.
It didn't even have much to do with the Cougars' 4-3 record, a two-game losing skid, or the talk of BYU's defense that had engulfed Provo on the other side of the country.
On Monday, Freeze's team meeting was all about opportunity.
"For those of you who are lucky enough to play in this game Saturday night, you're getting ready to make history. It is, without a doubt, the biggest home football game this program has ever had," he said in a moment captured by team videographers. "I came to this school for moments like this. You came to this school for moments like this. Every hotel in this town is sold out. The stadium is sold out. You'll be on national TV. It is a big game.
"You don't approach it any differently as far as preparation. But there's no hiding from this fact. You are lucky and fortunate if you get to play in it. I want you to embrace that. But at the same time, you must earn it."
We've prepared for moments like this. pic.twitter.com/DGW4MibvRD
— Liberty Football (@LibertyFootball) October 17, 2022
The game also represents a chance to cleanse a disappointing performance for the Flames, a 1-point win over Gardner-Webb on homecoming weekend.
"We did not play good football," Freeze said of the Flames' 21-20 win. "Offensively, it was a story of sabotage by our own selves much of the game."
On Saturday, two teams in their final year of FBS independence will meet one last time on the gridiron; and in many ways, it will be the fulfillment of dreams established when the late Jerry Falwell Sr. founded Liberty University in 1971.
Back then, Falwell saw Liberty as the bedrock of his faith, a foundational institution of higher education dedicated to the evangelical christianity espoused by the pastor. Liberty, it was said, was determined to be to evangelicals what Notre Dame was to Catholics. But Liberty's athletic department, which competed in the Football Championship Subdivision until 2017, never reached the heights of the Fighting Irish.
Perhaps a better comparison, then, might be the Flames' desire to be to members of their faith what Brigham Young University was to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: a university founded on faith that consistently espoused the rigors of doctrine and culture of the founders' religiosity.
When Liberty departed the Big South Conference and struck out for independence, it followed a similar path as BYU. Now in the final year of BYU's independence, the Flames, too, are preparing to join a conference: Conference USA.
Fitting, then, that in a season when the Cougars previously faced universities with Baptist and Roman Catholic roots, the final stop on their "faith tour" will come in Lynchburg, Virginia, to a bedrock game of Liberty's FBS goals and ambitions.
It'll be a challenge, Freeze told the media in Lynchburg of the series that began with BYU's 31-24 win in 2019 at LaVell Edwards Stadium. But it's a challenge the team embraces.
"It's one that we should be excited and embrace with the faith and belief that we've done something well to make a game of, that it has some significance in a lot of people's minds by playing such a great program like BYU at our home," said Freeze, whose 3-0 record in bowl games have kept him under contract at Liberty through 2026. "I think they're a top-25 team in the country; I know if you lose, polls beat you up. But their strength of schedule — Oregon, Baylor, Notre Dame, Arkansas — they have to have one of the toughest strength of schedules in the nation. And Utah State is a really good team, too.
"They'll play anyone. They're a Power Five team that probably plays a harder schedule than a lot of Power Five conference teams because of where they are currently. It is a tall, tall challenge. They're physically much larger than we are; they've got some full-grown men, and obviously, they know what they're doing. They've won a lot of football games at their place, and now you bring in Kalani who, truthfully, … Kalani Sitake is one of the finest human beings that you will ever meet. He loves his players. I just enjoy being around this guy. I love his core values, what he is about, and it will be fun getting to visit with him. I'm excited about this challenge, but I wish they weren't very good; they're really good, and that credit goes to him, his staff and his players."
From a defense that Freeze describes as "multiple" to an offensive line filled with "grown men," Freeze complimented BYU quarterback Jaren Hall and wide receiver Puka Nacua, along with an array of offensive weapons at each receiver spot and tight end for the 55th-ranked offense in the country that will keep the Flames' defense that ranks No. 31 on its toes.
"This is big-boy football, for sure," he said. "We're going to be really undersized in a lot of matchups. It's going to take enormous straining to win on every play. For us to have a chance to win this in the fourth quarter, it's going to take all of our kids to do that.
"There's no question that the physical presence of their team is daunting."
The Flames hold the better record, but their schedule has been filled with wins over the likes of Southern Miss, Old Dominion and UAB (and a 1-point loss at Wake Forest that could've changed the national perception of the program if a late 2-point conversion had been successful).
So whether one believes that BYU's trip to the east coast will be the biggest home game in Liberty history, a win in front of the projected sellout crowd at 25,000-seat Williams Stadium would be the biggest victory on this year's schedule to date, at least.
Big enough?
"If we have to jump through hoops to get our kids to want to compete against BYU or Arkansas, we're probably in big, big trouble," Freeze said. "I don't think the leadership of our team looks at it like checking a box of being bowl-eligible, and now we can cruise; I certainly hope not. But I don't sense that at all. I don't think that's the case."
