Memphis, Tennessee:

The 62nd annual AutoZone Liberty Bowl was one for the history books as West Virginia mounted a historic comeback over Army to win the AutoZone Liberty Bowl 24-21.

The first half of the game was a slugfest between the two with, Army taking a 14-10 lead to the locker room.

In the second half, it was Army early, jumping ahead 21-10 with 7:00 minutes to play in the third quarter.

In the second half, it was Army early, jumping ahead 21-10 with 7:00 minutes to play in the third quarter.

Then West Virginia scored 14 unanswered to close out the game and to earn a hard-fought 24-21 win over the Black Knights.

Head Coach of West Virginia, Neal Brown, had this to say about the win over Army.

“First of all, I want to thank everyone here in Memphis that’s associated with the AutoZone Liberty Bowl. It was a short stay, but a successful stay. I’m very proud of everyone associated with our program. I thought this game kind of mirrored 2020 in a lot of ways, so it’s a fitting way to close out the year. It wasn’t a thing of beauty, but it was gritty. And, you know, I thought it was really important for our guys to finish in the right way. Going into this game, we were great representatives of how the game should be played for eight games. We didn’t win them all, but we had a chance to win every single one of them. Our ninth game was ugly, and that wasn’t who we were. For us to bounce back and have a come-from-behind victory here in the fourth quarter and win our second bowl game since joining the Big 12, I thought that was huge. It’s huge for our program moving forward, going 6-4. A lot of our glue guys are seniors that are finishing a career. They played big roles in it, and I think that’s special. That’s a memory for them that they’ll have for their entire relife. That’s a happy locker room in there. That’s a locker room that has poured a ton into it, and they need some time off. Staff and players, everybody’s looking to hit a pause here. But what a way to end the 2020 season with a bowl win.”

What won the game for West Virginia was the in-game adjustments made on defense to contain the Army triple-option offense. The Black Knights were held to just 239 yards of total offense.

Head Coach Neal Brown had this to say about the in-game adjustments made to shut down the triple-option.

“We just tried to play our base defense. We didn’t try to recreate the wheel. It just wasn’t going to be possible. Most people that play Army or play a triple option in a bowl game, have a minimum of three weeks’ notice or you have them on your schedule and you work on it in spring, summer and fall camp. That wasn’t the case. Wed basically practice last Tuesday and Wednesday, came back, and then had a traditional game week. So, we practiced seven times, and only one of those was in full was in shoulder pads. With that, I thought our staff did a nice job adjusting, and they hurt us with some outside runs. You know, we are talented in the middle, we knew that they’d have a hard difficult time blocking us the matchups. The big fullback is hard to tackle, but they hurt us out on the perimeter. Once we got the backside safety over there to be a factor and were able to set the edge into the boundary, then we played that much better after the first drive in the second half.”

For the Army Black Knights, it was a record-breaking night for Tyler Tyhier as he finished tied for second all-time rushing touchdowns in AutoZone Liberty Bowl with three total touchdowns.

Army finishes the season with an impressive 9-3 record.

With the win, West Virginia improves to 6-4 on the season.