Sam Houston needed a lot of luck just to find 2 wins in 2025. Liberty needed a lot more than luck to snap its own losing streak. Thursday's Conference USA opener pits two programs both trying to prove last season was the outlier, not the new normal.
Bush’s Picks
SHSULIB
SHSULIB
OverUnder
Best BetLiberty
Liberty enters with the deeper roster, a returning defensive core, and preseason buzz as a legitimate CUSA title contender, while Sam Houston was picked to finish dead last in the league. That's about as lopsided a gap in expectations as you'll find in a conference opener, and it should show up in the win column even with Liberty's own QB competition still unresolved.
Sam Houston
+Longo enters year 2 with rare roster continuity
+Bowers Stadium finally hosting real home games again
+33-man transfer class targeted the trenches
−Went just 2-10, 1-7 in CUSA last year
−Redshirt freshman Locke unproven as a starter
−Picked to finish last in Conference USA
Liberty
+Athlon projects Liberty for the CUSA title game
+Returns 4 O-line starters plus a Penn State transfer
+Front seven returns 5 starters led by Farrar
−First losing season in 20 years last fall
−QB1 between Purdie and Henderson still unsettled
−Run defense ranked 10th of 12 teams in CUSA
Sam Houston hands the offense to redshirt freshman Landyn Locke, who took over after incumbent starter Hunter Watson went down with a season-ending knee injury 7 games into 2025 and later hit the transfer portal. Locke is the presumptive QB1 for Phil Longo in year 2, but he's unproven in live snaps against a team that's actually trying to win the conference. Liberty, meanwhile, still hasn't settled its own QB race — Wake Forest transfer Deshawn Purdie and returning redshirt senior Jaylen Henderson, who piloted the offense down the stretch last fall, are competing for the job.
The roster overhauls go deeper than the quarterback spot. Longo brought in roughly 33 transfer additions to rebuild Sam Houston's trenches, and the Bearkats finally get to play real home games in a renovated Bowers Stadium after effectively living on the road in 2025. Liberty leaned on the portal too, adding Penn State tackle Alex Birchmeier to a line that returns 4 starters and restocking its backfield with Arizona State's Kanye Udoh and Duke's Peyton Jones. The bigger swing for Liberty is on defense, where new coordinator Shawn Quinn inherits a unit that finished 10th of 12 CUSA teams against the run.
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SHSU Sam Houston
LIB Liberty
Both fan bases spent the offseason trying to talk themselves into a bounce-back, and the outside numbers only back one of them. Preseason polls have Sam Houston picked to finish dead last in Conference USA, while Athlon projects Liberty to play in the CUSA title game. That gap in expectations is the whole story here — this is a program on the way up hosting one that's still figuring out which direction it's headed.
Sam Houston Bearkats
Sep 25?@ Texas Tech—
Sep 19?vs Nicholls—
Sep 12?vs Tulsa—
Sep 5?@ Troy—
Liberty Flames
Oct 2?@ Delaware—
Sep 24?@ Coastal Carolina—
Sep 19?vs Ball State—
Sep 12?vs Gardner-Webb—
Sep 5?@ James Madison—
Recent form.
Liberty's defensive front seven returns 5 starters, led by linebacker Derrell Farrar's team-high 71 tackles from a year ago, and that continuity should matter early in the season while newcomers are still getting up to speed. Sam Houston doesn't have that luxury — Longo is fielding what's been described as an extremely young roster, and a redshirt freshman quarterback on the road against a more experienced front seven is not a great recipe for offensive rhythm.
Sam Houston Bearkats
(0)
Fully healthy — no injuries on ESPN's report
Liberty Flames
(0)
Fully healthy — no injuries on ESPN's report
Injury report — info via ESPN.
It's a wide gap on paper, but both teams are entering the year with real questions nobody's answered yet — Liberty hasn't even named its starting quarterback, and Sam Houston is trusting a first-year starter to run the show. Early-season Conference USA games like this one tend to expose exactly which unresolved question matters more.
