Plenty on the line as Chants close regular season at Liberty

Coastal Carolina football coach Joe Moglia has a stock response whenever he’s asked how events or situations from the past might affect or influence an upcoming game.

Moglia started with that familiar refrain this week before letting on this casemight be a little different.

The No. 4-ranked Chanticleers close the regular-season Thursday night at rival Liberty, with plenty at stake in terms of FCS playoff seeding, along with a vivid recollection of what happened the last time these teams met.

“Whether we won or lost last year has got nothing to do with what we’re going to do this year, but no, I think it’s fair to assume I’ve brought up last year,” Moglia said, letting out a telling smile.

Meeting in the 2014 regular season finale, Coastal Carolina was looking to take a perfect record into the playoffs and was positioned for a dramatic win with a 24-yard field goal attempt in the final seconds.

Instead, Alex Catron’s kick came out low and was blocked by the Flames, who held on for a 15-14 win, thus earning their first FCS playoff appearance in program history. The Chants, meanwhile, tumbled to the No. 7 seed in the playoffs and a date with eventual national champion North Dakota State on the road in the third round.

“We haven’t really talked about it that much,” Coastal Carolina senior quarterback Alex Ross said. “I mean, old memories have come back of that last play and them running over to the sideline after the game was over, not showing much class. But as far as us going into this game, this is another game and it determines the fate of the season so we’ve got to be ready to go and we’ve got to put ourselves in position where we want to be going into the playoffs.”

Coastal Carolina (9-1, 4-1 Big South) has been eliminated from contention for the conference championship, which Charleston Southern clinched outright, but the Chants would seem to be in position to clinch one of those coveted top-8 seeds in the FCS playoffs if they can win Thursday night.

That would give the Chants a first-round bye and keep them home through at least the second round.

“I’m not making those decisions, but I would like to think that that would be the case,” Moglia said. “But I’m sure the committee is going to do what they believe is fair.”

First, though, the Chants have to take care of business, and as the history between these programs has shown, that usually comes with quite a challenge.

Coastal Carolina is 2-4 all-time at Liberty’s Williams Stadium and had to rally from a 19-point deficit late in the third quarter to prevail for a 55-52 double-overtime win in its last trip there in 2013.

The Chants are coming off two of their best performances of the season, rolling over Gardner-Webb and Kennesaw State by a combined 91-13 margin the past two weeks, while the Flames (5-5, 2-3) are closing out what has been a disappointing season overall.

Liberty boasts a potent offense led by senior quarterback Josh Woodrum (2,510 passing yards, 10 touchdowns, four interceptions), who leads the conference in passing at 259.7 yards per game. His favorite target is senior wide receiver Darrin Peterson, who leads the Big South with 64 catches for 836 yards and seven touchdowns.

But the Flames rank last among league teams in scoring defense, giving up 27.5 points per game.

“They’ve been in a lot of close games and they’re a team who can turn it on just like that,” Ross said. “We’ve got to be ready to go. I wouldn’t be surprised if they turned it on and had a good game plan for us as they do every year. This is a big rivalry game and it always seems to be a close game.”

Liberty coach Turner Gill reiterated that last point as well. He said he isn’t making a big deal to his team this week about what happened last year against the Chants, other than to say that they know they can win in this matchup.

The playoffs may no longer be a possibility, but Gill says the game nonetheless holds plenty of significance for his team.

“You want to leave the season on a good note winning a football game against Coastal, which is always a very good football team, finishing up with a winning record,” he said. “And then going into the offseason program beating another top-10 team in the country, I think, would be a great thing for us and continue to move our program forward. We’ve had some good things happen this year and we’ve had some not so good things, so we’re going to hopefully end this season on a good note.”

The Chants, on the other hand, hope the end is still a ways off, and what happens Thursday night could factor significantly into that.

“If there was nothing else to play for, this is [still] a big game for us and we want that to be a great last regular-season game,” Moglia said. “But we’re also confident this is not going to be our last game of the season and there’s still a lot of football left and there’s a lot of things we can do and accomplish. But the absolute No. 1 priority is what we’re going to do Thursday night up at Liberty.”

This story was originally published November 18, 2015 at 7:19 PM with the headline "Plenty on the line as Chants close regular season at Liberty."