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Update December 21st 8:30 p.m.: Tennessee won’t play in this game due to Covid-19, and will be replaced by the Army Black Knights.
The Tennessee Volunteers and West Virginia Mountaineers will face off in the 2020 Liberty Bowl. The game will take place at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis, Tennessee, and kickoff is currently scheduled for 4:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, December 31st. The game will air on ESPN and be available via live stream at WatchESPN.
Army was 9-2 during the 2020 season, and won the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy over Navy and Air Force as well. They were left out of the original list of bowl game participants, but when Tennessee was unable to play they were finally allowed to compete. Head coach Jeff Monken has his soldiers playing fantastic football, and as per usual doing it on the ground via the triple option. They average 281.0 yards per game on 4.7 yards per rush, and are fifth in all of college football in time of possession at 34:58 per game.
The West Virginia Mountaineers (5-4) have one of the more explosive offenses in the Big 12 conference, averaging 422.7 yards per game this season. WVU are looking to bounce back from a 42-6 loss to the ninth-ranked Iowa State a couple weeks ago, a game where they could not get anything going offensively. The Mountaineers had only 54 rushing yards and zero passing touchdowns. Mountaineers running back Leddie Brown is a player to watch as he has 945 rushing yards on 179 carries and nine touchdowns in 2020.
You can bet Army will be excited to be in Memphis after originally being denied postseason, and the Mountaineers might not be thrilled about the amount of cut-blocking the triple option of the Black Knights will be bringing. This should be a good one where whomever controls the pace wins.