Wild upset may impact CFP picture

One of the crazier upsets of this college football season so far took place…on a Wednesday night? There, the 0-6 Kennesaw State Owls got not just their first FBS win ever (they joined that level this year after launching as a FCS program in 2015), but did so against the 27-point road favorite 5-0 Liberty Flames. And while even an undefeated and Conference USA champion Liberty might not have been able to claim the one automatic Group of Five berth in this year’s newly-expanded 12-team College Football Playoff given questions about their strength of schedule, a one-loss Flames’ team will have a much harder time still. Here’s how that game ended, complete with a field storming:

That automatic CFP berth will go to the highest-ranked G5 team . That’s currently No. 17 Boise State, with the Broncos 5-1 and featuring a three-point road loss to current No. 1 Oregon as their only blemish. They’ll face 6-1 UNLV Friday in a Mountain West clash. Beyond those squads, No. 23 Army and No. 24 Navy are undefeated G5 teams that could still wind up as American Athletic Conference champions, and 6-1 Memphis and 5-2 Tulane are still in the mix there. And the Sun Belt has 6-1 Louisiana, 5-1 Louisiana-Monroe, and 5-2 Georgia Southern.

Most of the aforementioned squads have a tougher schedule than Liberty’s and might have beaten them in the rankings even if the Flames stayed undefeated. And that’s especially true with Liberty losing the marquee game of their schedule, a road contest at Appalachian State, due to the impact of Hurricane Helene . So this loss is a massive one for them. And it’s also a massive win for Kennesaw State and coach Brian Bohannon, who’s led the Owls since their 2015 beginnings. Here’s his post-game interview, complete with a “How about them freakin’ Owls!”

This game didn’t set up as much of a contest, with Liberty 25.5-point favorites Tuesday and that line expanding to 27 by Wednesday. But the Owls pulled off quite the upset here, led by an efficient performance from quarterback Davis Bryson (16 completions on 20 attempts for 189 yards and a touchdown with no picks) and a defense that limited Liberty QB Kaidon Salter (who still threw for 206 yards and three touchdowns and ran for 87 more yards, but completed just 22 of 40 attempts and threw a pick).

With that win, Kennesaw State snapped Liberty’s 17-game regular-season winning streak. The Flames’ last loss was a 45-6 one to Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl, where they gained the G5 New Year’s Six slot over two-loss SMU. The Owls also handed coach Jamey Chadwell (who went there from Coastal Carolina in 2023 to replace Hugh Freeze) his first regular-season loss with the Flames.  And they shook up the CFP picture a bit in the process.

There’s no guarantee Liberty could have gotten to that G5 berth even by staying perfect. They would have probably needed some losses from others. But they certainly had a shot at it if undefeated, and at the least would have generated some conversation. That now seems much harder.

[ The Athletic ]

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