Damien Sordelett with the News and Advance has a great response in his Flames Mailbag to a question about President Falwell's statement:
Q. Liberty president Jerry Falwell Jr. told reporters Wednesday that hopefully the Flames will be in an FBS conference in a matter of months. Is that even possible and will a conference take Liberty?
A. For those who have been following Liberty or are diehard alums, that statement isn’t news. Falwell announced at the 2012 graduation that Liberty was FBS ready and ever since then, the chance to jump up has been the goal. First, there was the flirtation with the Sun Belt Conference that wasn’t reciprocated, and now there is the possibility of another wave of conference realignment once the Big 12 figures out what it wants to do.
That is why Falwell told reporters he hopes it is a matter of months. Reports have indicated that a decision will be made in the winter if the Big 12 will expand to at least 12 teams, which will have a trickle-down effect. The conference will likely take two teams from the American Athletic Conference, which will then force the AAC to raid Conference USA for members. Plus, there’s also the possibility the Mountain West Conference expands into Texas and poaches those teams from either the AAC or C-USA or both.
Liberty will be an option for both the AAC and C-USA, with the latter being the more attractive option for the Flames. Why is that? Here’s why: the Flames would have three travel partners (Old Dominion, Marshall and Charlotte) upon entering the conference and the C-USA is a better geographical fit for Liberty, especially if the Texas schools are heading to other conferences.
Think of it this way: the C-USA would have a similar footprint to the Big South-Atlantic Sun football conference merger if North Texas, Rice, UTEP and UTSA move, and the C-USA fills those voids with teams along the East Coast.
Now, will those four Texas schools all change conference affiliation at once? Highly unlikely, but not far-fetched considering there have been more drastic moves during realignment.
That brings up the second part of the question: will a conference take Liberty? I believe so. There are ADs in C-USA that would like to see Liberty join (namely the three travel partners) and it would make too much sense for that conference to add the Roanoke-Lynchburg television market.
If a conference doesn’t take Liberty in this next potential realignment movement, does Liberty move up as an independent? Say that happens. Where would the other sports play? The Big South would likely not allow Liberty to play its other sports in the conference since football would be losing its FCS automatic bid (unless more members are added before then), and the only two sports that would have affiliations are field hockey in the Big East and swimming & diving in the CCSA (Coastal Collegiate Sports Association).
The ramifications would be greater than just football, which is why a move to become FBS independent is not feasible.
Here's the link to the full article:
http://www.newsadvance.com/sports/damie ... b6788.html
is still strong
- By ballcoach15
- By Baybird