A Sea Of Red

chris leedlelee wrote: ↑December 6th, 2020, 8:44 pm

TallyW wrote: ↑December 6th, 2020, 6:20 pm All things considered, I'm confident we'll be P5 at some point. As long as we build our brand and do what we're doing, we'll become appealing if anything because we offer financial stability and a national brand reach.

If, several years ago, after we lost to St. Francis, someone would have said that we would be ranked in 2020 and would've had College Gameday, he would've been thrown off this board for being a madman.

My bad - UNC does not play SC annually. Regardless, we don’t fill the “ need” for them like the other NC schools-they are moving up the ladder pretty quick with Mack and will/should be scheduling 2 P5 Non Con games when ND is t in the schedule.
https://fbschedules.com/ncaa/north-carolina/

The most important moves made might be by Ian McCaw with scheduling. If our goal is to being one of the best G5's, we have to sustain it a year or two more, but we are almost there. Our long term goal though should be to be a P5 equivalent like BYU.
If we want, that we need to schedule at minimum 3 P5's a year, hopefully 4 and BYU and some AAC schools thrown in.

Ian first move though should be moving the 2023 UMass game to another year. You can't finish a year with UConn, UMass, and New Mexico State back to back to back. Have to replace it with a better opponent.

We then have 2 slots to fill in 2025 and 3 to fill in 2026. These need to be filled with at least one Power 5 team, and the other slots with BYU or at least AAC teams. Can't be weak teams. From 2027 and beyond, we are set up well. In 2027 we have Virginia, Virginia Tech, Duke, and Coastal already on the schedule out of 6 games.

sstaedtler wrote: ↑December 28th, 2020, 9:05 pm The most important moves made might be by Ian McCaw with scheduling. If our goal is to being one of the best G5's, we have to sustain it a year or two more, but we are almost there. Our long term goal though should be to be a P5 equivalent like BYU.
If we want, that we need to schedule at minimum 3 P5's a year, hopefully 4 and BYU and some AAC schools thrown in.

Ian first move though should be moving the 2023 UMass game to another year. You can't finish a year with UConn, UMass, and New Mexico State back to back to back. Have to replace it with a better opponent.

We then have 2 slots to fill in 2025 and 3 to fill in 2026. These need to be filled with at least one Power 5 team, and the other slots with BYU or at least AAC teams. Can't be weak teams. From 2027 and beyond, we are set up well. In 2027 we have Virginia, Virginia Tech, Duke, and Coastal already on the schedule out of 6 games.

I pointed out on csnbbs that Ian [aling with the future president and chancellor] should make some negotiations to become associate/partial members for Liberty's olympic sports. Those programs are great (ex: mbb are at the top of the mid majors) and could bring some benefit to the conference (would be at the top end by just joining to be honest). We would get a slim piece of the money disturbed to the members, so the presidents shouldn't feel threatened. Our football team could be similar to what Notre Same is the ACC in football. We just need 3-4 automatic games with AAC teams like ECU, Temple, Navy and UCF/USF/Tulane. Then add 3-4 P5 games to that of schools near our location (mostly ACC but once in awhile we can play WVU, Baylor, TCU, Rutgers, etc). Then add independents like BYU, UCONN(annually) and Army/UMass(every other season[although Army would be great annually on our MA day]). That's at least 10 games, so if we need 1-2 more, we could add any G5 (ODU) or one FCS (Rich, JMU, KSU, NC A&T, etc). This could happen starting in 2027 and continue from there.

I would hope by 2027 we are in AAC or a P5 conference for all sports.

Scheduling is about to get a lot harder.

Yup, I started thinking this right after VA tech. Teams not looking to import beatings from the outside. They want easy, non conference confidence builders. We no longer fit the criteria.

Jonathan Carone wrote: ↑December 28th, 2020, 10:19 pm Scheduling is about to get a lot harder.

Freeze mentioned this on Finebaum today.

With scheduling, it depends. If teams already have two weak teams scheduled for their out of conference games, they might want a tough team for their other two. If they have two hard games scheduled, no way will they look at Liberty for their other two. I hope when people see Liberty's facilities and we start to get bigger crowds, they are more likely to want to play us.

I can see some local teams like VA Tech and Virginia not wanting us to have that chance at stealing their recruits and thus not wanting to play us.

After filling the schedule to reach the full allotment of games, You only schedule OOC for two reasons:
1) Easy Win
2) Challenge/Upgrade

LU doesn’t currently fit either billing. It’s a Lose-Lose for P5’s right now.

JK37 wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 8:33 am After filling the schedule to reach the full allotment of games, You only schedule OOC for two reasons:
1) Easy Win
2) Challenge/Upgrade

LU doesn’t currently fit either billing. It’s a Lose-Lose for P5’s right now.

What if LU publicly claims they are an Upgrade?

My skepticism of FBS independence has always been that it’s an uncharted path; an unproven concept.

To date, everything has broke our way and our athletics administration has flawlessly tackled each obstacle.

In my opinion, this next hurdle - will good teams play us if we’re also good? - is the biggest one we will face because so much of it is out of our control. If we can get past it, the sky is the limit. But if we’re stuck playing UMass and NMSU every year with two FCS games then that loses its luster fairly quickly.

Our administration is really good so I have hope we can make it happen, but it’ll be much harder than most of our fan base realizes.

JK37 wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 8:33 am After filling the schedule to reach the full allotment of games, You only schedule OOC for two reasons:
1) Easy Win
2) Challenge/Upgrade

LU doesn’t currently fit either billing. It’s a Lose-Lose for P5’s right now.

I would add to pt #2 - that the challenge/upgrade is a “brand name”. Which is where LU will fall short even if the on field product is good. We can try to mirror BYU as much as we want, but that brand took decades to create. I’m not saying that means we give up on independence, but it sounds like we all are starting to measure the hill that LU needs to summit.

BlueBlood wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 9:14 am

JK37 wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 8:33 am After filling the schedule to reach the full allotment of games, You only schedule OOC for two reasons:
1) Easy Win
2) Challenge/Upgrade

LU doesn’t currently fit either billing. It’s a Lose-Lose for P5’s right now.

I would add to pt #2 - that the challenge/upgrade is a “brand name”. Which is where LU will fall short even if the on field product is good. We can try to mirror BYU as much as we want, but that brand took decades to create. I’m not saying that means we give up on independence, but it sounds like we all are starting to measure the hill that LU needs to summit.

And lest we forget, BYU built its brand being in a conference before going independent. It appears independence is working out for us so far, now we have to figure out how to sustain what we have and build on it.

ATrain wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 9:26 am And lest we forget, BYU built its brand being in a conference before going independent. It appears independence is working out for us so far, now we have to figure out how to sustain what we have and build on it.

Good point. And interestingly, they did it in what would now be considered a G5 conference.

BlueBlood wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 9:41 am

ATrain wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 9:26 am And lest we forget, BYU built its brand being in a conference before going independent. It appears independence is working out for us so far, now we have to figure out how to sustain what we have and build on it.

Good point. And interestingly, they did it in what would now be considered a G5 conference.

And won a “National Championship “

Purple Haize wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 9:58 am

BlueBlood wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 9:41 am

ATrain wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 9:26 am And lest we forget, BYU built its brand being in a conference before going independent. It appears independence is working out for us so far, now we have to figure out how to sustain what we have and build on it.

Good point. And interestingly, they did it in what would now be considered a G5 conference.

And won a “National Championship “

When did BYU ever claim a national championship? I am aware of Auburn and UCF doing it following undefeated seasons, but haven't heard of BYU doing it...

They don’t claim one, they have one. They were named consensus national champions in 1984.

Hey now, UCF didn't claim one either, they were named the National Champions by the prestigious Colley Matrix organization. Stop trying to ruin their fun

We were a FG away.

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 10:11 am We were a FG away.

From losing? From....?

Purple Haize wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 11:36 am

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 10:11 am We were a FG away.

From losing? From....?

Being undefeated. NC State

Purple Haize wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 11:36 am

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 10:11 am We were a FG away.

From losing? From....?

You have been afforded the opportunity to be your own judge on this one.

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 12:37 pm

Purple Haize wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 11:36 am

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 10:11 am We were a FG away.

From losing? From....?

You have been afforded the opportunity to be your own judge on this one.

Or.... you could actually complete a thought.

BlueBlood wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 9:41 am

ATrain wrote: ↑December 29th, 2020, 9:26 am And lest we forget, BYU built its brand being in a conference before going independent. It appears independence is working out for us so far, now we have to figure out how to sustain what we have and build on it.

Good point. And interestingly, they did it in what would now be considered a G5 conference.

AP voting, different scholarship numbers, different era entirely. No relevance to today’s set up. But even then it was controversial based on SOS.

Scheduling will change but it was going to change anyway. Either we were going to be a bottom feeder like umass and nmsu that people schedule for a dub or middle of the road type team that pops up and wins a game every now and then but also loses many games they shouldn't like our fcs days or what we've done this last 2 years.

There will still be good good teams looking for good games to bolster their resume. I do think it will be more difficult for p5 scheduling because they don't have much to gain.

However I think we could make a nice schedule off army byu ucf cincy Memphis Boise uab coastal Louisiana apply state etc and take the few p5 games you can get. Those teams will be hungry for ooc matches to bolster their chances at better bowls and possibly the playoffs if we ever go to 8.