The Liberty Flames have announced their 2018 football schedule plus 12 additional future football opponents.
The announcement was made on Saturday during Liberty’s Commencement Weekend. President Donald J. Trump spoke to Liberty’s 2017 graduating class and was the first to reveal many of the opponents.
Liberty will open the 2018 season at home on Sept. 1 against the Old Dominion Monarchs. Other home games scheduled include Norfolk State, North Texas, Troy, Idaho State, and New Mexico State.
Road games for the Flames include Army, New Mexico, New Mexico State, UMass, Virginia, and Auburn.
Liberty and New Mexico State will play an in-season home-and-home series in 2018 and 2019. The two schools will meet in Las Cruces and Lynchburg in both seasons.
Among the future football opponents added for 2019 and beyond, two are from the SEC (Auburn and Ole Miss), three are from the ACC (Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest), and one is from the Big Ten (Rutgers).
Listed below are all of the future opponents officially announced today by Liberty:
Army
Sept. 8, 2018 – Liberty at Army
Nov. 27, 2021 – Army at Liberty
Sept. 20, 2025 – Liberty at Army
Nov. 28, 2026 – Army at Liberty
Auburn
Nov. 17, 2018 – Liberty at Auburn
BYU
Nov. 9, 2019 – Liberty at BYU
Oct. 22, 2022 – BYU at Liberty
Buffalo
Sept. 14, 2019 – Buffalo at Liberty
Sept. 16, 2023 – Liberty at Buffalo
Old Dominion
Sept. 1, 2018 – Old Dominion at Liberty
Ole Miss
Nov. 13, 2021 – Liberty at Ole Miss
UMass
Nov. 3, 2018 – Liberty at UMass
New Mexico
Sept. 29, 2018 – Liberty at New Mexico
Sept. 28, 2019 – New Mexico at Liberty
New Mexico State
Oct. 6, 2018 – Liberty at New Mexico State
Nov. 24, 2018 – New Mexico State at Liberty
Oct. 5, 2019 – Liberty at New Mexico State
Nov. 30, 2019 – New Mexico State at Liberty
North Texas
Sept. 22, 2018 – North Texas at Liberty
Oct. 9, 2021 – Liberty at North Texas
Rutgers
Oct. 26, 2019 – Liberty at Rutgers
Troy
Oct. 13, 2018 – Troy at Liberty
Virginia
Nov. 10, 2018 – Liberty at Virginia
Nov. 23, 2019 – Liberty at Virginia
Sept. 11, 2027 – Virginia at Liberty
Virginia Tech
Sept. 5, 2020 – Liberty at Virginia Tech
Wake Forest
Sept. 17, 2022 – Liberty at Wake Forest
Aug. 30, 2025 – Wake Forest at Liberty
Sept. 3, 4 or 5, 2026 – Liberty at Wake Forest
Liberty is currently transitioning from the FCS and will move up to the FBS as an Independent beginning with the 2018 season. The Flames will be eligible to play in a bowl game following the 2019 season.
Wish our AD could get half of these games…
Getting close to finalizing the 2018 OOC schedules.
I see the following games likely to be scheduled:
UTEP@Stan
NM St@BYU
NM St@Utah St
NM St@UNLV
With that, the following five will still be in need of a FBS home game:
? @ Syracuse*
? @ Florida*
? @ West Mich
And the following are in need a FCS game:
Okla St / TCU
Mia-FL / Duke / GT
UCF / Houston / Cincin
FIU / UAB / Mid Tenn
Akron
ULM / Coastal Caro
Mass
West Mich
Utah St / UNLV
Programs with Hawaii +1 exception available:
(# of games already scheduled)
Utah St (10)
UNLV (10)
Wyoming* (12)
Nevada* (12)
Rice (12)
* already has a FCS game scheduled
Thanks for the breakdown Dogz,
BYU also plays Hawaii in 2018, and currently has 11 teams on its schedule (according to this site). With two more slots open, BYU could help a couple of these teams out.
My first choice is BYU at Florida in mid/late October. BYU does not have an SEC opponent yet scheduled for 2018, and such a pairing would bolster both teams’ resumes.
Florida already hosts Idaho on 11/17 and only have 9 open slots during the rest of the season. They would have to start out playing SEC games on 9/1 and 9/8 to make that mid October game with BYU possible. They may need to move that Idaho game to earlier in the year.
And yes, nice breakdown, Dogz.
BYU was at Hawaii in 2017 rather than 2018 so will only play 12 games in 2018.
Very likely to be a home game with only five scheduled.
The NMSU at BYU makes sense. Though BYU has been reluctant to pay visitors. So could instead be a home and home with return date 2021 or later and perhaps BYU will go beyond NMSU (SOS-wise) for that opponent.
NMSU will schedule an FCS team Oct 27 or Nov 3, and will visit an ACC school on Nov 10 (Miami, Wake, Duke). Not sure about the other two games. Going to BYU on Oct 13 would make sense. Finding a G5 school to visit Las Cruces in November will be a challenge.
Liberty can simply pay cash to get teams scheduled. Had Liberty not called NMSU they would have been up a deep creek with 6 open slots in October and November to fill
RE comments above:
1. BYU doesn’t have a Hawaii exception (they will schedule a lower tier FBS program to a home game);
2. With Idaho joining the FCS ranks in 2018, Florida needs to schedule a lower tier FBS program to a home game.
3. The ACC programs, besides Syracuse, would more than likely schedule a regional FCS program as they can get at a lower payout than NMSU. Syracuse already has a FCS game, so The Orange hooking up with NMSU in a late season game would be more likely.
I am extremely excited and happy for Liberty University. They finally are making the jump to the FBS, and they are already scheduling some big time games!