Before bowl season, Bill Connelly wrote a post ranking the bowls for watchability. The criteria were Quality (team F/+ rankings), Evenness (the difference between the two teams' F/+ rankings), Excitement (looking at teams that make big plays on offense and defense), and Improvement (delta from midseason F/+ rankings, designed to measure a team's interest level in a bowl game).
The Liberty Bowl ranked in the last tier of bowl games, titled "Addiction is painful."
By the numbers, this is a terrible matchup for K-State. Arkansas ranks 15th in F/+, while K-State languishes at 77th.