While the College Football Playoff has become the dominant aspect of college football’s bowl season, the non-playoff bowls have upped their marketing games to remain relevant.
That means bowl games often become less about the 7-5 teams on the field and more about the bowl sponsor and their ability to go viral.
Think Pop-Tarts, Duke’s Mayo, Cheez-It, and… Jesus?
Jesus didn’t sponsor a bowl game this year but did show up in the form of a t-shirt on Saturday at the Bahamas Bowl.
Liberty Flames head coach Jamey Chadwell was seen sporting a t-shirt that read “Jesus won” during the game against the Buffalo Bulls.
If the head coach of any major football program will wear a shirt like that, it will probably be the one at Liberty, an evangelical Christian university affiliated with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia and founded in part by televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr.
Unfortunately, while Jesus showed up in t-shirt form, he didn’t give the Flames the boost they needed to win on Saturday. Buffalo dominated the Bahamas-based bowl game en route to a 26-7 victory. Naturally, the disconnect between the t-shirt and the game’s outcome led to some fun responses on social media.
It’s ironic (or not ironic at all, depending on what you think) that Liberty, which literally wears its religion on its sleeves, is also a school mired in controversies related to some very un-Christian activities, including the time former football head coach Hugh Freeze harassed a sexual assault victim (one of 20 who sued the school).