[olldflame]

Coach Hout got around quite a bit after leaving LU. I'm pretty sure he spent some time in the arena league.

[Stevev]

At UT Martin also as an assistent football coach. LU, Baylor, UT Martin, and then the Florida high school that was mentioned in that order.

[dp24]

1992 - 7-4 - Maybe one of the toughest, if not THE toughest, schedule ever played in a single season by Liberty. Finished #19 in nation in AP polls. Would be interesting to see if today's version of an LU team could finish 7-4 against that schedule.

1989 - 7-3 To date, no LU football team has ever risen as high in the national polls (I think we were #6 and undefeated) after our Eastern Michigan win.

2008 - 10-2 - Dominating team with a tremendous amount of senior leadership. One can only wonder what IF....

[Stevev]

1992 - 7-4 - Maybe one of the toughest, if not THE toughest, schedule ever played in a single season by Liberty. Finished #19 in nation in AP polls. Would be interesting to see if today's version of an LU team could finish 7-4 against that schedule.

I will go with the 1993 schedule as the toughest ever but it depends on how you look at it. We played #1 Youngstown and Natl Champs, #2 Troy State, #9 Central Florida, and a NC A&T team that was ranked as high as 9 but LU was only mediocre finishing 6-5.
Could also argue that the 1991 schedule was tougher playing Boise State, Furman, Youngstown, Central Florida, Samford, JMU, Delaware St, and others. 3 of those teams made the playoffs with Youngstown winning it all, and 3 teams were close.

[Stevev]

I might be getting a little off topic with this schedule strength stuff and maybe it belongs in another thread perhaps. I forgot about some of the schedules Ken Karcher's teams had to play especially his 2nd and 3rd years there. Of course our results are nothing to brag about but at least the scheduling was tough.

[dp24]

When I see (and have experienced) LU playing many of the teams from the past and then see some of the difficulty in scheduling different teams today, makes me wonder why we can't still get quality OOC opponents from around the nation. Not for sure if I buy the idea that no one wants to play us...Look at the past records and teams, alot of great football teams played us yearin and yearout.

I guess I see the women's bb program as an example in the prime of how LU football needs to start thinking with their schedule..imo... The year after WBB went undefeated and then got drilled in the tourney, a change in thinking happened with their schedule. They began competing in tougher pre-conf tourneys, and got a much stronger set of opponents for the rest of their OOC. When Big South time came, they ran roughshod through the league. Then when tourney time came, they were more than competitive, finally culminating with a sweet 16 birth...

[Stevev]

I am not buying the "Nobody wants to play us" excuse either. The football schedules have been ridiculously soft since Coach Rocco came here and I am not ready to blame him for that but I am sure the Big South Conference has a lot to do with it. I would think that the schedule should be that an 8-3 record would give you a shot at a playoff birth and in the past it did but now we have no shot at all. Maybe not possible with us playing 6 Big South teams but we have to play more power conference teams from the Socon or Colonial and fewer Savannah State, St Francis, and Robert Morris types of teams.

I can relate to your comparison of the Womens hoops teams but the Big South is getting better at the top with High Point and Gardner Webb capable of knocking us off at any time and that makes it tougher to go undefeated in the league in any year. We are still the class of the league but it is no longer a given considering how competitive the BS finals have been the last 4 years.

[dp24]

1992 team with an 8-3 record, as an independent, with wins over Troy, Central Florida, and JMU and one other win, probably should have been A&T, would have DEFINITELY made the playoffs..imo.

As a side note to this thought, LU needs to start thinking to about filling up their new stadium. I believe that the newness will only last through this first season. After that, they need to bring in a Youngstown St (who used to come here), or some other regional rivalry besides JMU to attract the local Lynchburg crowd as well as out of towners (such as myself) who wouldn't mind driving 4+ hours to see LU vs. a Georgia Southern, App St., or even a Towson. The idea is to eventually get to the point where the stadium is filled to capacity again, no matter who we are playing. Better opponents = bigger gates = better game experiences at the Bill.