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Liberty Flames 2026 Season Preview

Conference USA · Jamey Chadwell, year 4 · 4-8 last season · No. 96 in our FBS ratings

Betting on Purdie

Jamey Chadwell is rebuilding almost from scratch, with only 38% of his production returning, betting that Deshawn Purdie can lift a scoring offense that finished 84th nationally faster than the roster's No. 84 talent rank would suggest is possible.

Replacing Evan Dickens

Can Liberty replace the ground game that Evan Dickens carried, with the defense returning just 34.5% of its production to lean on while that gets sorted out? The likelier outcome is a rockier stretch than Conference USA fans are used to seeing from this program, since Deshawn Purdie is stepping into a run-heavy identity without the back who defined it and without a defense that can mask an adjustment period. Jamey Chadwell has rebuilt rosters before, but asking a first-year quarterback and a thin defensive holdover group to cover for a lost workhorse back at the same time is the tougher version of that job.

A Soft Slate, No Excuses

Liberty's schedule ranks 137th in difficulty, which makes the projected 7-5 mark feel like a floor rather than a ceiling for Jamey Chadwell's fourth year. The only true road test comes early at James Madison, a game the Flames are underdogs in at 30 percent, and the rest of the gauntlet is defined by coin-flip trips to Delaware and Kennesaw State rather than any single measuring-stick opponent. With Ball State, Sam Houston and Middle Tennessee all sitting as clear should-win games at home, this season comes down to whether Liberty can sweep the toss-ups against Delaware, Kennesaw State and Western Kentucky to turn a manageable slate into a real conference push.

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A 4-8 record buried the real Liberty team last fall: a 1-4 mark in one-score games and a -7 turnover margin are the kind of breaks that don't repeat, and the yardage margin in conference play says this group actually outplayed its record. Deshawn Purdie arrives from Wake Forest to run the offense, and if Jamey Chadwell's team simply converts those yards into points at a normal rate, the 7-5 projection looks conservative rather than generous. The floor here is a bowl team; the ceiling is a Conference USA team that finally wins the close ones it lost in 2025.

Chadwell's Buried Evidence

The 4-8 mark hides what actually happened on the field for Jamey Chadwell's group. Liberty went 1-4 in one-score games and finished at -7 in turnover margin over 12 games, the kind of bad luck that rarely repeats twice. In league play, the yardage margin implied a 51.7% win rate against a 37.5% actual mark, and the offense needed 15.2 yards per point scored against a 14.1 league median, meaning drives stalled out short of the end zone far too often. None of that is a talent problem, it is a finishing problem, and it points toward a bounce-back year four for Chadwell rather than a repeat of the record.

Purdie Inherits a Lopsided Attack

Liberty's 2025 offense ran on the ground, ranking 26th nationally in rushing yards per game while its passing attack sat 101st, and the explosiveness numbers (101st) show a unit that moved the chains without ever hitting the home run. Wake Forest transfer Deshawn Purdie now takes over that lopsided attack, and his 618 yards with 6 touchdowns against 3 picks last season suggests a game manager who can lean on the run rather than a vertical fix for the passing woes. The bigger issue sits on defense, where a 118th-ranked sack total and 124th in tackles for loss left Liberty at minus-7 in turnover margin, and until that front generates more disruption, Purdie's job is to protect the ball, not erase it.

Evan Dickens took 1,325 yards and 16 touchdowns out the door, and Liberty didn't bring back a single proven ball carrier to replace him, so the entire room got rebuilt through the portal. Terron Kellman arrives from Wyoming as the clear lead option after 331 yards and 4 scores there, with Kanye Udoh (Arizona State, 240 yards) and Justin Marshall (Colorado State, 260 yards) giving Jamey Chadwell multiple change-of-pace bodies who've actually carried a college workload. That ground game ranked 26th nationally in rushing yards per game last season on Dickens' back, and this transfer haul is a bet that volume across three new runners can approximate what one departed workhorse did alone.

Rashawn Cunningham (34 catches, 628 yards, 7 TD) is the only proven target left after Liberty lost Reese Smith, Tyson Mobley, Casey Cain and Elijah Canion, a group that combined for real production a run-heavy offense (193 rushing yards per game, 26th) leaned on to complement the pass. Jamari Person's 28 grabs return with almost no explosive plays attached, and the reinforcements are unproven, freshman signee Jakobe Dejesus and Indiana transfer Makai Jackson, who caught just 3 passes last year. With passing already 101st in yards per game and the offense 101st in explosiveness, Liberty's ceiling in 2026 still runs through the ground game while Cunningham tries to be the passing attack almost by himself.

Liberty's leading returning tight end caught just 4 passes for 87 yards, and Jacob Jenkins' 14 catches and 2 touchdowns are gone entirely, so this room gets rebuilt almost entirely through transfers. LaKelsey Johnson Jr. arrives from Baylor, Zeke Wimbush from Virginia Tech, and Breckan Kirby joins after transferring in from North Greenville, all thrown into a passing game that ranked 101st in the country in yards per attempt last season. With Caleb Ryan and Bo Burklow back but unproven as high-volume targets, the portal additions are being counted on to give a run-heavy offense (193 rushing yards per game, 26th nationally) a more dangerous complement through the air.

Liberty's ground game hummed at 193 yards per game (26th) behind a line that now loses more bodies than it keeps, with 12 departures against 11 returning up front. Jamey Chadwell restocks with five incoming linemen headlined by Alex Birchmeier (Penn State) and Jude Foster (Ole Miss), transfers meant to plug into the interior alongside senior holdovers Christian Williams and Erwil Anthony Jr. The passing protection issue does not go away on its own either, with 25 sacks allowed and a 101st-ranked passing attack last season, so the new pieces need to gel in pass sets, not just the run game, for this offense to climb out of the middle third nationally.

Liberty's front lost its two most disruptive pieces, Eli Hall and Brenton Williams, off a group that already finished 124th in tackles for loss and 118th in sacks, so the pressure numbers have nowhere to go but up unless the newcomers hit fast. Nathan Pirolli's 42 tackles anchor a returning rotation that produced little penetration, and none of Mike Jarvis, Aaron Hester or Markus Clark topped a handful of TFLs last year. Five three-star additions led by Xavier Reid and edge piece Lorenzo Payne IV arrive with no college production to lean on, meaning Chadwell is betting on unproven bodies to fix a line that couldn't get off blocks in 2025.

Derrell Farrar's 71 tackles and 4 TFL make him the one proven piece in this front seven, but Liberty loses Joseph Carter's 53 tackles from a defense that already ranked 124th in tackles for loss and 118th in sacks. Micah Pollard and Aidan Vaughan return with modest tackle totals, and the group gets a boost from incoming signee Ellis Alloway out of Choctawhatchee and SMU transfer Kyle Ferm, neither of whom has meaningful production yet. The run defense finished 110th in rushing yards allowed, and until Farrar gets real help creating negative plays, that number is the season's honest expectation.

Liberty gutted its secondary tackle production and rebuilt almost entirely through the portal, none of it more consequential than the safety room. D-Icey Hopkins (51 tackles, 3 TFL at Georgia State), Jeremiah Vessel (54 tackles at UAB) and Ashton Whitner (38 tackles, 3 TFL at Ball State) arrive to replace departed contributors A'Khori Jones and Jalon Rock, while Jayden Davis is the lone returning safety with real snaps. Corner is a bigger question since Elijah Hopkins, Jiquavious Marshall, Jamal Miles and Myke Gunn all return but combined for single-digit tackle totals, and this group has to find takeaways given a defense that finished 116th in havoc rate and 124th in tackles for loss a year ago.

Liberty loses its entire proven kicking output, with Jay Billingsley's 15 of 20 field goals and 78 points and Max Morgan's 41.2-yard punting average both off the roster, leaving a group of returners in Tyler Black, Sam Crossan, Nathan Dinwiddie and Chase Reeves who have combined for a single made field goal (1 of 2, on a 24-yard long) between them. Chase Reeves is the only leg with any game history, but that thin sample means the job is genuinely up for grabs, and three-star signee Carson Jones arrives straight from high school at Providence as a name to watch rather than an instant answer. On special teams, unproven is the story in 2026, and Liberty's margin in close Conference USA games could come down to whichever of these unproven kickers wins reps first.

A Backfield Made Over

Evan Dickens' 1,325 yards and 16 touchdowns walk out the door, and Liberty answered by importing a running back committee almost from scratch: Terron Kellman (331 yards, 4 TD at Wyoming), Justin Marshall (260 yards), Kanye Udoh (240 yards) and Kam Davis all arrive from the portal to split carries rather than replace Dickens with one man. Under center, Deshawn Purdie takes over after throwing for 618 yards and 6 touchdowns at Wake Forest, a modest sample that still makes him the clear answer at quarterback for Jamey Chadwell's offense. With Donte Lee Jr.'s 589 receiving yards also gone, this is an offense being rebuilt around volume in the backfield while Purdie grows into the job.

Deshawn Purdie

Liberty is handing the offense to Deshawn Purdie, the Wake Forest transfer, over Ethan Vasko, whose 1961 yards came bundled with 12 interceptions last season. Purdie's own line at Wake Forest was thin, just 618 yards and 6 touchdowns against 3 picks, so this is a bet on fit and decision-making rather than a proven track record, and with Evan Dickens' 1325 rushing yards gone and Wyoming transfer Terron Kellman replacing him with only 331 yards of his own, Purdie will have to create offense through the air with Rashawn Cunningham rather than lean on the run.

Bettors Beware

Liberty went 4-8 straight up, but backing this team cost bettors more than it should have, a 3-9 mark against the spread with just one cover in six tries as a home favorite. Jamey Chadwell's group actually played tighter on the road, covering twice in four tries away from home, and the lone spot they consistently delivered was as a road underdog. The week-after-a-loss trend (2-5 against the number) points to a program still searching for the follow-up punch entering year four under Chadwell.