[Liberty22]

My take was no criticism on the accomplishments of this years team in the face of adversity. The defense has been outstanding and I’ve been a JB supporter all year BYU was a nice win despite the Cougars troubles this year and Arkansas was special. But LU sports in general can never seems to seize the opportunity to take the next step. That goes for Football, Baseball, Basketball, Softball etc (Field Hockey being an exception). ‘Something’ always happen.
Beating Tech would be/will be amazing. But the window to truly be special this year or even the next few, has unfortunately closed.

I don't understand this take. We will hopefully be looking at a 10+ win season despite losing more than half of our starters from last year on both sides of the ball. Barring massive turnover we will be returning almost all of our main contributors except for a few on each side of the lines. Whether we finished this season undefeated or 6-6 we were looking at a mediocre bowl against a mediocre G5 opponent regardless. This team is positioned to bring in some additional depth through the portal and take a huge step forward next year when it'll start meaning much more.

His take is very easy to understand actually. The way all the dominoes fell on Saturday, a win vaults us too 15, maybe even in the 12 range. Puts us in the CFP ranking, and has us as the best G5 team in football. There were outside of LU circles talking about a potential NY6 at-large vs at-large bowl spot for us. The national scene talking about Liberty would have been astronomical.

[paradox]

Teams prepare for us differently now with Hunter out. Losing him for the season and not having Salt at full strength would be akin to losing Malik in 2020. It changes things significantly.

We can still finish strong though. Beating Tech still matters. Maybe we're getting closer to tasting some of that Magic Salt again. I'm sure Hugh would love to add some into the mix.

[Ill flame]

His take is very easy to understand actually. The way all the dominoes fell on Saturday, a win vaults us too 15, maybe even in the 12 range. Puts us in the CFP ranking, and has us as the best G5 team in football. There were outside of LU circles talking about a potential NY6 at-large vs at-large bowl spot for us. The national scene talking about Liberty would have been astronomical.

We are still receiving votes and have a solid chance of finishing the season ranked if we win out. How is that outcome significantly worse for the program than if we would've won against uconn? The CFP committee was never going to rank us in the top 12 for a Ny6 bowl this year, our tie ins dictate that we are stuck in mediocre bowls for one more year. We would still be at least in the top 5 of G5s and would be bringing in the same quality of recruits in both scenarios. If we win our games next year no one will remember that we lost to uconn and it'll be like this loss never happened.

[Purple Haize]

His take is very easy to understand actually. The way all the dominoes fell on Saturday, a win vaults us too 15, maybe even in the 12 range. Puts us in the CFP ranking, and has us as the best G5 team in football. There were outside of LU circles talking about a potential NY6 at-large vs at-large bowl spot for us. The national scene talking about Liberty would have been astronomical.

We are still receiving votes and have a solid chance of finishing the season ranked if we win out. How is that outcome significantly worse for the program than if we would've won against uconn? The CFP committee was never going to rank us in the top 12 for a Ny6 bowl this year, our tie ins dictate that we are stuck in mediocre bowls for one more year. We would still be at least in the top 5 of G5s and would be bringing in the same quality of recruits in both scenarios. If we win our games next year no one will remember that we lost to uconn and it'll be like this loss never happened.

You miss the point entirely. Beating UCONN solidifies in folks minds that the BYU and Arkansas games (Tech?) were not flukes. Considering LU wasn’t ranked ANYWHERE in the CFP last week winning the UCONN game among everything else that happened yesterday LU WOULD have been ranked in the CFP. LU probably would have climbed up in other polls as wee.
LU finishes this year 11-1 with wins over Tech BYU and Arkansas gives it a lot of eyeballs going into next year where the possibility of going undefeated off another 1 loss season is a real possibility. It really had the chance to boost LU’s entrance into CUSA. Instead LU is no better, and no worse, off then before. But they missed a golden opportunity to take a big step forward.

[Tnobes]

We threw away the good PR from the BYU and Arkansas wins by losing to a dumpster fire team

[JK37]

UCONN is not a dumpster fire. They were a year and two ago. They’ve put out those flames. (Oops, pardon the pun.) Their last win made them bowl-eligible. No dumpster fire anymore.

[LU 57]

UCONN is not a dumpster fire. They were a year and two ago. They’ve put out those flames. (Oops, pardon the pun.) Their last win made them bowl-eligible. No dumpster fire anymore.

Mora brought in 20+ transfers this year. Totally different team. Regardless, it was clearly a bad loss.

[ballcoach15]

There needs to be a limit on number of transfers a school can sign in a single season.

[Purple Haize]

There needs to be a limit on number of transfers a school can sign in a single season.

How many has Freeze brought in every year?

[stokesjokes]

Limit should be our transfers plus one

[AATL]

Whether we finished this season undefeated or 6-6 we were looking at a mediocre bowl against a mediocre G5 opponent regardless. This team is positioned to bring in some additional depth through the portal and take a huge step forward next year when it'll start meaning much more.

I know C-USA is a divisive topic here, but I think there is some truth to this. It will be fun for these games to count towards a tangible, objective goal like a conference championship next year.

[AATL]

How many has Freeze brought in every year?

Quite a bit, depending on the needs. I believe he's mentioned somewhere around a 50/50 ratio in the past. The numbers check out:

In 2022:
15 transfers - Brewer, Hunter, Snead, Hanshaw, Henderson, Gadlin, Watkins, Young, Reddy, Osagiede, Butler, Smith Jr., Freeman, Hodge, Singleton
11 HS - Fortenberry, Martin, Dixon, Bazile, Conaway, Norwood, Jackson, Ricks, Green, Jones, Sweeney

7 transfers / 12 recruits the year prior.

[Purple Haize]

How many has Freeze brought in every year?

Quite a bit, depending on the needs. I believe he's mentioned somewhere around a 50/50 ratio in the past. The numbers check out:

In 2022:
15 transfers - Brewer, Hunter, Snead, Hanshaw, Henderson, Gadlin, Watkins, Young, Reddy, Osagiede, Butler, Smith Jr., Freeman, Hodge, Singleton
11 HS - Fortenberry, Martin, Dixon, Bazile, Conaway, Norwood, Jackson, Ricks, Green, Jones, Sweeney

7 transfers / 12 recruits the year prior.

That seems to be too many for ballcoach

[Risewithus]

The Ahmad Walker penalty was the swing point and it was colossally dumb!

A lot of missed tackles by the backups.

Would assume Aakil and Dupree were exhausted by the end. You are right though there were missed tackles from the beginning of the game until the end.

[paradox]

The Ahmad Walker penalty was the swing point and it was colossally dumb!

A lot of missed tackles by the backups.

Would assume Aakil and Dupree were exhausted by the end. You are right though there were missed tackles from the beginning of the game until the end.

Too much was made over the Walker play. The RB was fighting to escape a tackle and was just short of a pivotal first down. He was a little out of control, but he barely grazed the guy. Pedestrian announcing combined with delayed mom-league call on the field. It obviously didn't appear that way in real time. That's why it wasn't called initially. Yeah, he went airborne, and hypothetically......sorry but that's taking it a bit too far. What happens matters more, hypotheticals are nonsense.

Also, the penalty barrage started after UConn failed to convert on 3rd and long. Johnson was called for hands to the face. And things cascaded from there. They didn't show the replay. I'll assume it was legit. I think that UConn frustrated our guys a little bit. They were small and overmatched, but focused, smart, determined, scrappy, prepared, and ultimately deserved the W. Good for them. Not so good for us. Tech matters more. All is forgiven, if we get that one.

[JK37]

I agree with a lot, but for me not all is forgiven even if Lu beats Tech. The UConn loss marginalized this season. It eliminated What Might Have Been.

[rtb72]

His take is very easy to understand actually. The way all the dominoes fell on Saturday, a win vaults us too 15, maybe even in the 12 range. Puts us in the CFP ranking, and has us as the best G5 team in football. There were outside of LU circles talking about a potential NY6 at-large vs at-large bowl spot for us. The national scene talking about Liberty would have been astronomical.

We are still receiving votes and have a solid chance of finishing the season ranked if we win out. How is that outcome significantly worse for the program than if we would've won against uconn? The CFP committee was never going to rank us in the top 12 for a Ny6 bowl this year, our tie ins dictate that we are stuck in mediocre bowls for one more year. We would still be at least in the top 5 of G5s and would be bringing in the same quality of recruits in both scenarios. If we win our games next year no one will remember that we lost to uconn and it'll be like this loss never happened.

I think it might still linger a bit. I know I still remember the sting of losing to ULM. We talk about next year and how we "should" be top of the standings in CUSA, but that's "next year". For me, I'll still be cautious in our season next year when we are beating teams we should, always wondering if a UConn or ULM situation is right around the bend. I think we have to live in this season we're in. To Purple's point of 'what could have been' (even though this season will be good), this season had the potential to be historic. Even though it still has some elements (BYU and Arkansas), one need only look one weekend after to see the UConn loss . Not criticizing the team, but I think we all know the optics it reflects. Next season remains....what might be. I'm just hopeful and excited about VT....

[Ill flame]

I think the opportunity for a special season sailed when we lost to wake forest and then went on to struggle against some of the worst teams in the country and a fcs school. Don't get me wrong, it would be nice to be ranked 17 in the AP poll and 25 in the cfp ranking right now but that doesn't demonstrably change the trajectory of this program. At the end of the day we can say we missed our opportunity by losing to uconn but the cfp committee wasn't taking us seriously because we can't beat bad teams convincingly. I keep saying next year has a good chance to be special but it'll never be good enough to squeeze out close wins in c-usa like we are doing now. If we want to be taken seriously we have to start beating bad teams convincingly to truly have a special season.

[FlamesHighontheTide]

As someone who was so disappointed in the showing on Saturday. I have had time to just think back on this season with still 2 more games to go that I believe we will win. So, 10-2 would be that record with a possible 11th win, which has never been done before at LU. HCHF loves doing things for the first time. How many of us honestly thought prior to the season that we would be 8-2 prior to the VT game? How many of us thought we would be ranked as high as 19th in the country at any time during the season? How many of us thought we'd even keep it within 2 scores of Arkansas? How many of us thought after the Southern Miss game with Brewer going down to an injury that we'd be 8-2 at this point?

Yes, the loss to UCONN sucked. But one loss doesn't define this team nor HCHF nor this season. If these guys respond the way I think they will and the way they did after losing a heart-breaker to WF then we beat VT and we beat NMSU. Then we are sitting 10-2 for the regular season and a 10 win team without Malik Willis at QB. A 10 win team that took starting 3 different QB's. A 10 win team with a few weeks to get healthier and for HCHF to game plan for our bowl game opponent for the chance at an 11 win season!

My friends, I am still excited to be where we are even with that loss to UCONN. For the record, I had us losing 3 games this year and I literally thought I'd be disappointed if we ended up with more than the 3 losses (not including bowl game).