Welcome back, college football fans, to episode 694 which focuses on the only Division I (D1) football game today. To prepare for the week, there are 6 games tomorrow (Friday) and a full slate on Saturday. Like we are planning for not only football, but also Men’s and Women’s basketball, if there’s a D1 game on a given day, there will be an Expectation for it. Of course, that means (almost) daily posts beginning November 1st through sometime in March (except for a couple of days in December). It’s a large undertaking compared to previous years, but all of us (ok, the two of us) at the GCR believe our data is more accurate and we’ll have a lot of fun producing the content.
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The Liberty Flames (2-1/70) began playing football in 1973 and was an NAIA independent from 1976 through 1983. They promoted to NCAA Division II until 1987 before becoming an FCS (old Division I-AA) through the 2001 season. In 2002, they joined the Big South Conference and stayed there through 2017 when they promoted to the FBS as an independent. More on that in a moment. In 2023, they joined Conference-USA where they reside. Liberty had 8 Big South titles (2007, 08, 09, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16) and one C-USA championship (2023).
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Liberty (along with New Mexico St) is responsible for one of the more difficult upgrades to the GCR, which has actually been around in some form since 2012. Before 2017, the program was a 2-D matrix that did not allow for “repeat” games between two schools. That means we had to stop publishing (and ranking) prior to championship week. The GCR was just G at the time (no JoJo although we could have used her help), and, quite frankly, I couldn’t figure out how to “fix” it (hence the need for JoJo’s help). Then in 2017, two things happened at the same time that forced my hand: 1) Liberty became an FBS independent and 2) New Mexico St left the Sun Belt to become an independent. Either one of those more than likely would not have caused an issue, but both together allowed these two schools, who were having trouble completing their schedules, to decide to play each other twice in the season. In reality, neither team was very good and the result of the second (uncounted) game would not have had much impact at the top of the GCR, but the GCR would be incomplete. Under this pressure (granted self-imposed), we developed our current 3-D matrix that does allow for repeats. Not only did that solve the immediate LIB/NMST problem, but it also allowed us to predict and rank throughout the postseason. In the long term it allowed us to add basketball which has quite a few “duplicate” games that would have been impossible to manage in the old matrix. For that, we thank both schools. Creativity is often based in panic – certainly the case here.
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The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers (1-2/106) opted to play football in 2003 and joined the Big South Conference that year setting up the beginning of this rivalry. For the 2016 season as they were beginning their promotion to FBS, they became an FCS independent for a year. They joined the Sun Belt Conference in 2017 and have been there ever since. Similar to Boise St’s blue field, the Chanticleers play on a teal field. When watching them play, it almost feels like we need to adjust the color on the tv, but, no, that is the color of the field. Despite the program being young, they have numerous conference titles including 7 Big South crowns (2004, 05, 06, 10, 12, 13, 14) and 1 in the Sun Belt (2020). If one reads the titles closely, one will see shared Big South crowns with Liberty.
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As members of the Big South, Liberty won the first game between these schools 38-21 in 2003. Coastal won the next 3 including an overtime thriller in 2005 before Liberty flipped the script for 3 straight. Overall, Liberty leads the series 8-7 including an overtime win (third in the series) in the last game they’ve played together, the Cure Bowl in 2020. Coastal has a 5-2 lead when playing in Conway as tonight’s game is.
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When Liberty has the ball, they bring an Offensive Efficiency Rating (OER) of 113 (93rd out of 266). That OER means that, so far this season, the Flames have scored 11.3 points for every 10.0 points their opponents have allowed (including games against LIB). They will face a Chanticleer (teal rooster) Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER) of 148 (66th). That DER means that Coastal allows 10.0 points for every 14.8 their opponents normally score (including games against CCAR). On the flip side, when Coastal is driving they bring an OER of 116 (96th) and will face a LIB DER of 152 (59th). Currently, Liberty is scoring 29.3 points per game and allowing 19.3 while Coastal is scoring 27.7 and allowing 20.0. Vegas has Liberty-2.5 and the GCR agrees that the Flames will win and cover the spread. We actually calculated the Flames to win by 10.0. But we’ve been wrong before which is why we only post predictions for entertainment purposes. Watch this game on the teal field at 7:30 Eastern on ESPN. Here is the breakdown:
| Time (ET) | Games of September 19th | Conference | Vegas | GCR | Cover | TV |
| 7:30 | Liberty (2-1/70) at Coastal (1-2/106) | USA/SUN | LIB -2.5 | LIB | LIB | ESPN |
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That’s it for today. Tune in tomorrow for a 6-game set. If today is the appetizer, tomorrow is the soup prior to the entree on Saturday. Thank you for reading (it’s why we do this), commenting, questioning, and suggesting (it’s how we get better), and, especially, for sharing with others (it’s how we grow). Enjoy the game tonight and we’ll see you tomorrow, JoJo and G.
