It’ll be “Country Roads” vs. “Rocky Top” on New Year’s Eve in Memphis, Tennessee.
West Virginia University has accepted an invitation to face the University of Tennessee in the Auto Zone Liberty Bowl on Dec. 31 at Memorial Stadium in Memphis. The 62nd edition of the Liberty Bowl — the seventh-oldest bowl in America — is scheduled for a 4 p.m. kickoff and will be televised by ESPN.
“On behalf of our players, we are very excited,” WVU head coach Neal Brown said in a Zoom media conference Sunday night. “We’ve got a real young football team and our guys are excited about it. We’re using this game as a way to salute our seniors,” who missed their traditional Senior Day festivities when the Mountaineers’ regular-season finale against Oklahoma was postponed and ultimately canceled due to COVID-19 complications.
WVU and Tennessee have met just once on the football field, a 40-14 Mountaineer win in the 2018 season opener, played at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, the home of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers.
WVU picked apart the Volunteers defense that day to the tune of 527 total yards, including 429 passing yards (and five touchdown passes) from Mountaineer quarterback Will Grier. The game was delayed for 65 minutes at halftime due to a protracted lightning storm.
Tennessee finished the 2020 regular season with a 3-7 record and in fifth place in the SEC East standings. The Volunteers opened the season with wins at South Carolina (31-27 on Sept. 26) and at home vs. Missouri (35-12 on Oct. 3) but lost six in a row before a 42-17 win at Vanderbilt on Dec. 12. Tennessee’s last game was a 34-13 home loss Saturday to Texas A&M. All of the Vols’ losses were by 11 points or more.
Four of Tennessee’s losses, though, came against SEC teams ranked among the top six in the Associated Press poll when the games were played. Those teams — Georgia (44-21, No. 3 on Oct. 10), Alabama (48-17, No. 2 on Oct. 24), Florida (31-19, No. 6 on Dec. 5) and Texas A&M (34-13, No. 5 Friday) — have a combined record of 40-6, giving UT the fifth-toughest strength of schedule in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
Tennessee is led by sophomore running back Eric Gray, who ranks fourth in the SEC with 772 rushing yards and leads the Volunteers with six touchdowns (four rushing, two receiving). On defense, linebackers Deandre Johnson and Kivon Bennett each have five sacks for UT.
WVU will play the game without linebacker Tony Fields, the Big 12′s leading tackler, who announced earlier this month he will skip the Mountaineers’ bowl game to focus on his preparations for the NFL draft.
But Scottie Young, who arrived at West Virginia in August, announced Sunday on Twitter that the NCAA will allow him to play in the bowl. Both Fields and Young transferred this season from Arizona.
Brown said Young has excelled on scout teams in practices this season and said he could be used at safety, bandit and on special teams.
“He had a tremendous year. We moved him all over the field and he had a tremendous attitutde,” Brown said of Young.
This will be WVU’s third trip to the Liberty Bowl, where the Mountaineers have an 0-2 record. WVU lost to Utah 32-6 in the 1964 game in Atlantic City, New Jersey — the first bowl game played indoors — and to Texas A&M 45-37 in 2014 in Memphis.
Tennessee is 3-0 in Liberty Bowl trips, defeating Arkansas (14-13) in 1971, Maryland (7-3) in 1974) and Minnesota (21-14) in 1986.
The Volunteers are 29-24 all-time in bowl games and have won in their last four bowl trips, including last year’s 23-22 win over Indiana in the Gator Bowl.
This will be WVU head coach Neal Brown’s first bowl trip in his two seasons with the Mountaineers. Brown was 3-0 in bowl games as head coach at Troy, defeating Ohio (28-23) in the 2016 Dollar General Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, North Texas (50-30) in the 2017 New Orleans Bowl and Buffalo (42-32) in the 2018 Dollar General Bowl.
WVU, 5-4 overall this season, finished in sixth place in the Big 12 standings with a 4-4 league mark. The Mountaineers’ last game was a 42-6 loss at Iowa State on Dec. 5.
WVU is 15-22 all-time in bowl games. The Mountaineers’ last bowl win was a 43-42 squeaker over Arizona State in the Cactus Bowl on Jan. 2, 2016 in Phoenix.
WVU’s last three bowl trips ended in losses under coach Dana Holgorsen: to Syracuse (34-18) in the 2018 Camping World Bowl, to Utah (30-14) in the 2017 Heart of Dallas Bowl and to Miami (31-14) in the 2016 Russell Athletic Bowl.
Last year’s Liberty Bowl saw Navy defeat Kansas State 20-17.
The Liberty Bowl has been played every year since 1959, first for five years (1959-63) at Philadelphia’s Municipal Stadium (later JFK Stadium), often in frigid temperatures. In 1964, the game was moved to the Atlantic City (N.J.) Convention Hall, where WVU lost to Utah on a field with limited space and end zones shortened from 10 to 8 yards.
The Liberty Bowl moved to Memphis in 1965 and has remained there since.
Tickets to the Liberty Bowl may be purchased by calling (901) 795-7700 or online through Ticketmaster.com
Mountaineer fans thinking of traveling by car from Charleston to Memphis are looking at about a nine-hour trip covering about 600 miles.
