Liberty University football is a completely different program than it was just a year ago and now they are ‘The Joker.’ Hugh Freeze is down in Alabama and Jamey Chadwell is at the helm of the Flames after leading Coastal Carolina to national relevance over the last three college football seasons.
With Chadwell came a complete overhaul. He and Freeze are two very different coaches— both in terms of Xs and Os and in regard to the culture they lead.
Liberty is 1-0 under the new regime after a season-opening win over Bowling Green and will welcome a sneaky dangerous New Mexico State team to Virginia on Saturday. The Flames will don blue helmets, red jerseys, and blue pants as they take the field for their Conference USA opener.
To announce the uniform combination, Liberty’s creative team took a play out of film director Todd Phillips’ playbook. It was inspired by The Joker.
Liberty football leans into the villain.
Liberty University is a private Christian school. It closely aligns with evangelical tradition and has a very strict Student Honor Code called “The Liberty Way” that includes a 10:00 p.m. curfew, strict dress code, ban on alcohol, tobacco, nicotine and drugs, and a ban on sexual relations outside of marriage, among other things. It is all intended to align with biblical principles.
All of this goes to say that Liberty is extremely conservative in nature. Thus, for the Flames to play into a character that is the living embodiment of the cruel randomness of fate was quite the surprise.
They rolled out a new turnover mask during its game last week and it’s awesome. Kobe Singleton came down with a pick and got to debut The Joker mask — hair and all — on the sideline.
The mask was such a big hit that the creative team used it to unveil its uniform combination for Week 2.
The video is a play on the famous scene in which Joaquin Phoenix dances down the stairs and it does a great job of shadowing the 2019 blockbuster smash.
However, if you look closely— Liberty posted the video from a burner account and then shared it from its team account. Is it trying to avoid a copyright strike for using a song it doesn’t own?
For Liberty, of all schools, to go all-out with The Joker is a bit of a surprise. Chadwell is leading a new era in Lynchburg. Turnover props (and uniform announcements) don’t get much cooler than that!