The 2020 Cure Bowl was a

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivis ...

played on December 26, 2020, with kickoff at 7:30 p.m. EST on

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. It was the 6th edition of the

Cure Bowl The Cure Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game that has been played in December of each year in Orlando, Florida since 2015. It was originally held at Camping World Stadium before moving to Exploria Stadium in 2022. The Cure Bowl i ...

, and was one of the 2020–21 bowl games concluding the 2020 FBS football season. Sponsored by mortgage lender FBC Mortgage, the game was officially known as the FBC Mortgage Cure Bowl. Liberty defeated Coastal Carolina in overtime, 37–34, to claim their second consecutive Cure Bowl victory.

Teams

Based on conference tie-ins, the Cure Bowl was expected to feature teams from the

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (The American or AAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) ...

(AAC) and the

Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001. Its football teams participa ...

. The contest matched

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

Liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

against

Coastal Carolina Coastal Carolina University (CCU or Coastal) is a public university in Conway, South Carolina. Founded in 1954 as Coastal Carolina Junior College, and later joining the University of South Carolina System as USC Coastal Carolina, it became an in ...

of the Sun Belt. The two teams had previously met 14 times, with each program winning seven times. They were due to play a regular season game in early December 2020, but it was canceled due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

issues within Liberty's program.Domingo, Ida (December 4, 2020).
Liberty, Coastal Carolina game canceled after coronavirus concerns within football program
. ''

WSET-TV WSET-TV (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Lynchburg, Virginia, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for the Roanoke–Lynchburg market. The station is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, and has studios on Langhorne Ro ...

''. ''MSN.com''.

Liberty Flames

Liberty entered the game with a 9–1 record, having only lost to

NC State North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The university ...

, and ranked 23rd in the

AP Poll The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and broadca ...

. This was Liberty's second bowl game in program history; after joining FBS in 2018, the Flames defeated

Georgia Southern Georgia Southern University (GS or Georgia Southern) is a public research university in the U.S. state of Georgia. The flagship campus is in Statesboro, and other locations include the Armstrong Campus in Savannah and the Liberty Campus in Hin ...

in the 2019 Cure Bowl.

Coastal Carolina Chanticleers

Coastal Carolina entered the game with an 11–0 record (8–0 in conference play) and ranked ninth in the AP Poll. The Chanticleers defeated two ranked teams during the regular season,

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

and

BYU Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day S ...

, giving each of those programs their only loss. The BYU game was a hurriedly scheduled substitute for the canceled Liberty game; it had been officially confirmed only two days before kickoff. The Chanticleers were due to play a rematch with Louisiana in the

Sun Belt Championship Game The Sun Belt Conference Football Championship Game is an annual college football game that determines the season champion of the Sun Belt Conference (SBC). The game is played between the SBC regular-season divisional champions from the East and We ...

, but it was cancelled due to positive COVID-19 cases within Coastal Carolina's program. This was the first-ever bowl game for the Coastal Carolina program, having joined FBS in 2017.

Game summary

This became the first game of the 2020–21 bowl season to go to overtime. Tied at 34–34, Liberty was poised to score a go-ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter. With a first-and-goal at Coastal Carolina's three-yard-line with 1:20 left to play, Liberty executed a running play designed not to score, to use up time on the clock. Coastal Carolina made no attempt to stop Liberty from scoring, so Liberty's ball carrier took a knee and lost two yards on the play. On second down, Liberty again appeared to try to stay out of the end zone, but as the Flames' running back approached the goal line, there was a fumble, which Coastal Carolina recovered. Coastal Carolina was not able to advance the ball significantly in the little time remaining, and the game went to overtime. Liberty had possession first in overtime; after running three plays that gained four yards, the Flames had a five-yard delay-of-game penalty, then successfully kicked a 44-yard field goal, to take a 37–34 lead. In Coastal Carolina's overtime possession, the Chanticleers had three incomplete passes, then attempted a 42-yard field goal that was blocked, leaving the final score at 37–34 for Liberty.

Statistics

Notes

References

External links

*
Game statistics
at statbroadcast.com {{Liberty Flames bowl game navbox

Cure Bowl

Coastal Carolina Chanticleers football bowl games Liberty Flames football bowl games