Jerry Falwell’s Liberty has always wanted to be BYU. Now the Cougars are coming for a visit

Hugh Freeze labored over what he would say for weeks as he addressed his team before the seventh game of the season.

Never mind that his team was 6-1. Never mind that Liberty was one of only 16 teams in the country bowl eligible. This speech had nothing to do with that, even though it was true.

And as Monday morning came around, he still couldn’t find the words that met the moment. How could he? So he decided to say it plainly.

“For those of you lucky enough, and I said lucky enough, to play in this game, you are getting ready to make history,” the 53-year-old said. “It is, without a doubt, the biggest home football game this program’s ever had.”

It is big for one reason: BYU is coming to Lynchburg, Va.

The program that Liberty endlessly chased, poured money and made risky moves to emulate, will visit Williams Stadium. It will give the Flames a platform they’ve wanted, no matter what the cost was to get it.

“We are walking in the fulfillment of a vision that started from nothing other than a belief,” Freeze said. “And to be able to walk in that, I know that [Jerry] Falwell would be just ecstatic to see the crowd, the atmosphere and everything that is going to be on Saturday afternoon.”

Liberty, when it was founded and run by Falwell in 1971, never made any mistake about what its identity would be. It wanted to be like BYU, the president of the university said, a religious school that was a national power in athletics.

The formula was simple: BYU is to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as Liberty is to evangelical Christians.

And when Jerry Falwell Jr. assumed his father’s role in 2007, he wanted that vision expedited. Money was spent accordingly: $29 million for an indoor football practice facility; $32 million for an athletic administration building; nearly $1 billion in total infrastructure for the university.

Then came the questionable hires that Falwell thought would put Liberty over the top. He brought in former Baylor athletics director Ian McCaw to shepherd his vision. McCaw resigned in Waco in light of the sexual assault scandal on the Baylor football team. He hired since-fired coach Art Briles.

“BYU is very much a program that we aspire towards as a faith-based school that’s had tremendous success, including winning the national championship,” McCaw said when he was hired.

McCaw then hired Freeze, a former Ole Miss head coach who was fired for making calls to an escort service from his university issued phone.

Falwell himself eventually resigned in 2020 after allegations of an extramarital affair in his family came out. That same year, Liberty also became a flashpoint politically as the university stayed partially open during COVID-19 and hosted many events without the need for social distancing or vaccinations.

Falwell, who was a vocal supporter of former president Donald Trump, also came under attack for his tweets about Blackface and his university’s Title IX system for reporting sexual assault. Many staff members resigned in protest of Falwell’s leadership.

“Liberty University Board of Trustees accept[ed] the resignation of Jerry Falwell, Jr,” the Liberty statement read in 2020. “During his time as president, Falwell Jr. oversaw more than $1 billion of ongoing or planned construction as the campus was almost entirely transformed with new world-class academic buildings and athletics facilities.”

But this game on Saturday is still the vision he wanted, no matter what the cost was and who he hired.

Liberty visited BYU in 2019 and lost 31-24. This year will be a similarly tough task.

BYU, a team about to go to the Big 12, is much bigger and much deeper than Liberty, a team about to head into Conference USA. It is a similar relationship BYU has with Notre Dame, as the Cougars try to chase the next level of college football superiority themselves.

Even if Liberty doesn’t win, it will be a game in front of a national television audience and a sold-out crowd. This is what they wanted, and now they will get it.

“It is going to be a great day of celebration,” Freeze said. “A celebration of kind of where the vision has come that Falwell cast many years ago.”