CUSA with three games left: Liberty and Jacksonville State are on a collision course

Conference USA's championship race is the simplest in the Group of Six: two unbeaten teams, one championship game and a scheduling quirk that guarantees they won't meet until the title is on the line.

Liberty (8-1, 5-0) and Jacksonville State (7-2, 5-0) are the only unbeaten teams in CUSA play. The conference schedule-makers didn't match them up during the regular season, which means the first time they'll share a field is the championship game. Both can clinch a spot Saturday with a win. After that, the only question is who hosts.

MTSU (5-4, 3-2) is the only other team still mathematically alive. Everyone else is eliminated.

Liberty: The conference's most dominant team

Liberty (8-1, 5-0) has won eight straight and is putting up numbers that don't look real. The Flames allow 9.4 points per game in conference play — the best mark in CUSA. The conference scoring margin (+26.2) dwarfs Jacksonville State's (+14.2), which is second in CUSA.

Week | Game | Outlook

11 | vs MTSU (Saturday, CBSSN) | Lean Liberty — MTSU is 1-3 on the road. This is the game that determines whether MTSU stays alive.

12 | vs WKU | Lean Liberty — Liberty is 4-0 at home. WKU is 1-5 on the road.

13 | at Missouri State | Lean Liberty — Missouri State is 3-1 at home but 0-5 on the road and on a losing streak.

A win Saturday clinches a spot in the championship game and eliminates MTSU from the race. Two of three remaining games are at home, where Liberty is 4-0. The Flames have scored 35.6 points per game in conference play while allowing 9.4. The defense has been the story — five conference games, 47 total points allowed.

Jacksonville State: Chasing a third straight title game hosting

Jacksonville State (7-2, 5-0) has won six straight and clinches a championship game berth with a win Saturday regardless of what happens in the Liberty-MTSU game. The Gamecocks are 5-0 at home and vying to host the CUSA championship game for the third consecutive year.

Week | Game | Outlook

11 | at WKU | Lean JSU — WKU is 2-1 at home. Jacksonville State's road record (2-2) makes this the trickiest of the three.

13 | at Delaware | Lean JSU — Delaware is 3-1 at home and scores 36.0 per game in conference. Not a giveaway.

12 | vs Missouri State | Lean JSU — JSU is 5-0 at home. Missouri State is 0-5 on the road.

Jacksonville State's conference defense (15.4 PPG allowed) is second in CUSA behind Liberty. The offense (29.6 PPG) is efficient without being explosive. The Gamecocks win with balance — they don't blow teams out the way Liberty does, but they don't need to.

The hosting question is the real stakes for Jacksonville State down the stretch. If both teams finish 8-0 in conference, the CUSA tiebreaker procedure determines the No. 1 seed. Head-to-head doesn't apply — they never played. Common opponents' winning percentage would be tied if both ran the table. That pushes the tiebreaker to Step 4: average computer ranking across SP+, SportSource Analytics, ESPN SOR and KPI. Liberty currently holds the edge in those rankings. Jacksonville State's clearest path to hosting is Liberty losing a game.

MTSU: Alive on paper

MTSU (5-4, 3-2) is the only team that can mathematically reach the championship game beyond the two leaders. The path is narrow enough to be a formality.

MTSU must win out — including Saturday at Liberty, where the Flames are 4-0 at home, on an eight-game winning streak and allowing fewer than 10 points per game in conference play. Then MTSU needs Liberty or Jacksonville State to lose all of their remaining games. Not one. All of them.

If MTSU beats Liberty on Saturday, the Blue Raiders would still need the Flames to lose their final two (vs WKU and at Missouri State) to finish ahead of them. Or they'd need Jacksonville State — currently on a six-game winning streak — to lose three straight. Win the toughest road game on the conference schedule and then pray for a historic collapse. That's the path.

Everyone else

Six teams sit at 2-3 in conference play. All can finish no better than 5-3. None can catch Liberty or Jacksonville State. Sam Houston (1-8, 0-5) is winless in conference play on a six-game losing streak.

These teams are playing for bowl eligibility and positioning, not the championship. Delaware (4-5, 2-3) is the most interesting of the group — the Blue Hens score 36.0 points per game in conference play, first in CUSA, but allow 32.8. They host Jacksonville State on Nov. 28 in a game that could affect the hosting picture if the race is still tight.

The collision course

Liberty and Jacksonville State have spent the entire conference season running parallel unbeaten streaks without ever crossing paths. The schedule made it that way — no regular-season meeting between the top two teams in the standings.

Saturday could make it official. If both win, they clinch spots in the championship game and spend the final two weeks of the regular season jockeying for the right to host. Jacksonville State wants that game at home for the third year running. Liberty's defensive dominance — 47 points allowed in five conference games — suggests the Flames will have something to say about it.