After All the Pride Hype, Liberty Hands UMass Its Head on the Gridiron

I took a long weekend to spend some time with my wife, so sports were not on my radar. Because of this, I completely forgot that the much-ballyhooed Liberty University–UMass football matchup was slated for Saturday.

The oddsmakers were predicting a win for the flames. And win they did, to the tune of 42-24. You can watch the highlights of the shellacking below:

ESPN notes that Liberty used two touchdown passes and three running TDs to put the Minutemen on ice. When the last whistle blew, Liberty’s record stood at 5-1 at home and 3-1 on the road, while UMass continues to enjoy life in the cellar at 1-5 away and 1-1 at home.

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Both teams are still independent programs, so the matchup was not what was making headlines. What hype there was centered around the fact that the game fell on UMass’s Pride Day. UMass took the opportunity to troll Liberty for its conservative Christian values. The trolling began with this ad:

Apparently, pride is not enough to win football games, although it is good for warm fuzzies, I suppose. The Flames, undaunted by the taunts, showed up in Amherst and served the Minutemen and their supporters a rather large reality sandwich. And made them eat the whole thing. Bite by bite. In fact, Liberty was up 21-10 going into halftime.

The moral of the story here, sports fans, is this: You can cut your hair short, paint it blue, purple, or yellow, fill your face with studs, and scream “trans lives matter” at ever-increasing decibels that cause hamsters to collapse and dogs to run en masse off cliffs. You can even break windows, set fires, and screech like a gibbon trapped under a riding mower.

The only person who cares is you and whoever is joining you for your daily scream session on the quad. As it turns out, things like gravity, health, finances, employment, and yes, football, don’t particularly care about your identity or your temper tantrums. Oh, some people will pretend to care, to placate you or make you go away. Some will even make some concessions to make you think you won. They will coddle, manage and handle you, but they will never take you seriously.

Maybe UMass figured that the Pride angle might make the inevitable loss a little less painful. Or maybe they figured Pride trumps actual victories in life. Liberty, on the other hand, takes football and life seriously, and strolled away with the “w.”

But take heart, UMass. You still have your pride.