#63 Liberty

Lynchburg, VA

Williams Stadium

September 2, 2023

Liberty 34 - Bowling Green 24 (ESPN Recap)

First takeaway from the first stadium attended in 2023 is that Liberty’s location is very remote. Somewhere in rural Virginia, it is not close to any major cities or airports and hard to get to by plane or car. I chose to fly into tiny Roanoke airport (which required two flights from West Palm). I was not expecting nostalgia from the 2013 D3 men’s basketball national title run memories on arrival to Roanoke, but those came free with the trip. After landing, it was a rental car and 1:10 drive to Lynchburg, straight through the heart of the deep south of Virginia.

Upon reaching campus, I was met with a sprawling and massive grouping of buildings that all looked like they were constructed within the last ten years. I parked at a free 8-story parking garage and did the long walk to the stadium. There was a fair amount of people eating, corn holing, and watching screens at tailgates along the way, but very little alcohol consumption. No one was interested in my bright pink shirt with the blog website printed in black on it. Campus was huge! And then I googled it and found out they have 47,000 undergrads AND 47,000 grad students, for a total enrollment of 94,000!!

Once at the game, I was surprised and impressed by the student section for Liberty. They had 5,000-5,500 students that filled just under 25% of the entire stadium. Perfect size stadium for the amount of sports fans they draw, even though on the small side of capacity (24k) given the size of the school. They were loud and engaged, though I would describe the engagement more like a basketball crowd than a football crowd (ie. any flag on BGSU resulted in a “you can’t do that!” chant).

It was a scorcher of a noon kickoff and I bought my single ticket on SeatGeek while on the walk to the stadium for $13. Sat 38-yard line 15 rows up. Stadium doesn't sell alcohol (it was too hot to drink anyway), but will scratch your faith itch if you have one and are looking to go to church a day early: pre-game prayer for the third time out of 63; bible verses on the screens the assistants hold up to block cameras from seeing play calls; school fight song lyrics; and pretty much every video board interaction slipped something in. The public speakers spread around campus also playing loud worship music before and after the game (presumably during as well).

Neither team is good, but Liberty was less bad. BGSU threw five interceptions on 31 pass attempts and only lost by 10. One of the interceptions was housed for a pick-6 and two were by the best player on the field, Liberty LB/Safety Jerome Jolly Jr.

I happened to capture the play of the game on video inadvertently while recording the student section sing-along to Taylor Swift.

I did not like the name of the stadium as an Amherst College grad.

Had to sweat the final two snaps of offense for BGSU from their own 2 yard line on 3rd and 4th downs and then the decision by coach Chadwell to take knees in order to hang onto my BGSU +10.5 winning ticket. I also live bet BGSU +11, +14.5, and +24.5 throughout the first half of the game. Clean sweep across the bets which was fun.

Walked briskly back to parking garage and immediately set off for G2 of the double-header, driving 1:40 to James Madison University in Harrisonburg.