Liberty Football: Flames and New Mexico State play throwback series in 2018

The Flames and Aggies revive an old tradition in 2018. Liberty and NMSU will play a home-and-home series, allowing both independents to play 12 games this year.

Life as an independent isn’t always easy when your name isn’t Notre Dame or BYU. Once a normal part of the national college football landscape, independent programs are increasingly becoming an anomaly in the sport. But FBS expansion and the ever-shifting conference landscape always seems to ensure that there are always a few independents each year aside from the two denominational universities.

This year, Liberty is moving up as a transitional member of the FBS. For the Flames, FBS independence is a step up. Conversely, it is a step down for New Mexico State. The Aggies were

For those schools, filling out a full 12-game schedule became instantly more difficult. Thus they turned to one another to make things complete. Liberty heads to Las Cruces on October 6. New Mexico State reciprocates with the return game two days after Thanksgiving in Lynchburg.

They were compelled to schedule one another twice in large part because there aren’t enough independents to fill out the program. And given that many Power Five programs are eschewing matchups against mid-majors with rising frequency, it further restricts an already limited pool of opponents with few opportunities to schedule non-conference games.

One workaround, as Liberty and New Mexico State reminded the college football world, is compressing a home-and-home series with an opponent in a single season rather than spreading it out over two seasons. For decades that was the norm in college football. Throughout the 19th century, teams like Princeton and Yale regularly played opponents multiple times a season.

Look no further than the first college football season, when Princeton and Rutgers played twice in 1869. Since then, the trend spread from the northeast as the sport’s popularity proliferated. But leading up to the 1900s and beyond, teams regularly met more than once a season.

Between 1883 and 1892, for instance, Yale outscored Wesleyan a combined 1617-9 in 27 games matching up the two teams. Wesleyan only scored in two of the games over that span… and gave up 100-plus points on three occasions during the same decade-long stretch. Many times the multi-game series of this era were lopsided affairs like Yale-Wesleyan.

It was a trend that continued into the 20th century

The practice of playing a multi-game series against opponents continued at various points of football history and throughout various regions in the United States. Wartime restrictions often lead to such scheduling moves. During World War II, teams remained anchored regionally and traveled less. Especially out west, the geographic distances between schools caused a refocus on limiting the amount of traveling required to get in a full season.

That led to series like California, UCLA, and USC playing a three-way home-and-home round robin to fill up the bulk of their seasons between 1943 and 1945. Colorado and Utah similarly played one another twice in 1943, Utah and Denver did the same in 1944, and Denver and Colorado College also played home-and-home series throughout the period.

When teams are concentrated geographically and linked through conference affiliation, the need to play multiple games against the same opponent wanes. When geography becomes a factor or conference affiliation is stripped, scheduling becomes a far greater challenge.

The trend is already beginning in 2018 with Liberty and New Mexico State. The Aggies nearly started the trend five years earlier, when they were left in the wilderness of independence along with Idaho after the dissolution of the WAC. Only at the 11th hour did the two teams find another opponent that prevented them from facing one another twice in the same campaign.

Scheduling an opponent twice in the regular season is far different than squaring off again after a regular season is complete. Encountering an opponent again in a conference championship game or a bowl game is an organic act that naturally occurs as a result of the way the regular season plays out. Playing an opponent twice in the regular season is a deliberate act.

At one time home-and-home series were a regular feature of the college football landscape. With independence becoming ever tougher to manage for mid-majors cast aside by a conference, we could see such mutually beneficial scheduling become a more commonplace act. Look out for more mutually beneficial arrangements for smaller schools like the one engineered this year by Liberty and New Mexico State.