A Sea Of Red

Liberty finished 2020 ranked 17th in the AP.

In 2022 we reached 19 after beating Arkansas.

As others have pointed out, we likely will crack the AP top 25 this week. This will likely be the third time in 4 years we have reached the top 25. Amazing accomplishment for such a young FBS program!

Starting this thread to track games that may impact our ranking and allow for debate on where we should be ranked if at all!

Go Flames!

We need to overtake JMU. They play ODU today and we have them on 11/11. Assuming we both win, a more decisive victory would enable us to leapfrog them ( theoretically).

ODU will be trouble for us. They will be hungry.

K State is receiving one less vote than us in the AP poll and they are dominating Houston right now. There's a good chance they jump us.

Looks like Duke may drop out of the rankings if they continue to play how they are playing against Louisville.

Kansas looks like they may leapfrog us as well. They’re up with less than a minute left against Oklahoma.

Kansas did indeed beat previously undefeated Oklahoma.

Leapfrog:
Kansas
Kansas State

Losing right now:
13 Utah getting whipped by Oregon
20 Duke is losing to Louisville
24 USC is losing to Cal
26 Florida is losing to Georgia

Games to watch later:
17 North Carolina vs Georgia Tech
19 Air Force vs CSU
25 JMU vs ODU
23 UCLA vs Colorado

It’s starting to look iffy that we will be ranked unless we get a few upsets. Even with a loss UNC may still be ahead of us. The other games the ranked team are huge favorites.

Of course we’d all really love to see Air Force and JMU lose…

Kricket wrote: ↑October 28th, 2023, 5:20 pm Leapfrog:
Kansas
Kansas State

Losing right now:
20 Duke is losing to Louisville
24 USC is losing to Cal
26 Florida is losing to Georgia

Games to watch later:
17 North Carolina vs Georgia Tech
19 Air Force vs CSU
25 JMU vs ODU
23 UCLA vs Colorado

It’s starting to look iffy that we will be ranked unless we get a few upsets. Even with a loss UNC may still be ahead of us. The other games the ranked team are huge favorites.

Of course we’d all really love to see Air Force and JMU lose…

I would add #13 Utah to your list. Normally a team ranked that high won't fall out of the top 25 after losing to a top 10 team but with as bad as their getting beat its a possibility.

Ill flame wrote: ↑October 28th, 2023, 5:47 pm

Kricket wrote: ↑October 28th, 2023, 5:20 pm Leapfrog:
Kansas
Kansas State

Losing right now:
20 Duke is losing to Louisville
24 USC is losing to Cal
26 Florida is losing to Georgia

Games to watch later:
17 North Carolina vs Georgia Tech
19 Air Force vs CSU
25 JMU vs ODU
23 UCLA vs Colorado

It’s starting to look iffy that we will be ranked unless we get a few upsets. Even with a loss UNC may still be ahead of us. The other games the ranked team are huge favorites.

Of course we’d all really love to see Air Force and JMU lose…

I would add #13 Utah to your list. Normally a team ranked that high won't fall out of the top 25 after losing to a top 10 team but with as bad as their getting beat its a possibility.

Yeah, they’re getting boat raced. Unlikely we leap frog them but there’s a chance.

Ok, so we pass up Duke and probably UNC. Even though JMU won there’s a small chance we jump them as they narrowly escaped ODU. Long shot to pass up Utah.

We may be passed up by Kansas, Kansas State, and maybe Oklahoma State?

I’d say we’re looking at a coin toss if we’ll be ranked or not.

It'll be interesting to see if we sneak in at 25. I highly doubt UNC and Duke are ranked after today and K state is very likely to jump us and get the #24 spot. After that I guess it depends on Kansas because I don't see anyone else jumping us this week. Kansas didn't receive a single vote in the current rankings but they are now a 2 loss P5 school with a top 10 win which is a top 25 resume at this point in the season. I have a feeling they will end up around #26 and then break into the top 25 if they win again next week but I can also see them stealing that #25 spot.

Ill flame wrote: ↑October 29th, 2023, 12:36 am It'll be interesting to see if we sneak in at 25. I highly doubt UNC and Duke are ranked after today and K state is very likely to jump us and get the #24 spot. After that I guess it depends on Kansas because I don't see anyone else jumping us this week. Kansas didn't receive a single vote in the current rankings but they are now a 2 loss P5 school with a top 10 win which is a top 25 resume at this point in the season. I have a feeling they will end up around #26 and then break into the top 25 if they win again next week but I can also see them stealing that #25 spot.

We are going the wrong way...ha! 28th AP

We nearly tripled our vote count from 17 to 47 which is a step in the right direction but that's discouraging. Kansas and K state jumped us which wasn't surprising. What is surprising is seeing OK St jump ahead of us and UNC still getting as many votes as they are. This is what we get for not dominating weak teams.

Ill flame wrote: ↑October 29th, 2023, 3:01 pm We nearly tripled our vote count from 17 to 47 which is a step in the right direction but that's discouraging. Kansas and K state jumped us which wasn't surprising. What is surprising is seeing OK St jump ahead of us and UNC still getting as many votes as they are. This is what we get for not dominating weak teams.

Yet JMU jumps higher up for sneaking by ODU. They passed up USC who beat Cal. Sometimes the polls aren’t necessarily rational.

I’m really curious to see the playoff rankings Tuesday. History has been the playoff was tougher on us than the AP voters so I wonder where we will be there in that 26+ range.

Liberty22 wrote: ↑October 29th, 2023, 3:12 pm I’m really curious to see the playoff rankings Tuesday. History has been the playoff was tougher on us than the AP voters so I wonder where we will be there in that 26+ range.

I don’t recall CFP going past top 25. do they even list “ also receiving votes” ?

tyndal23 wrote: ↑October 29th, 2023, 3:42 pm

Liberty22 wrote: ↑October 29th, 2023, 3:12 pm I’m really curious to see the playoff rankings Tuesday. History has been the playoff was tougher on us than the AP voters so I wonder where we will be there in that 26+ range.

I don’t recall CFP going past top 25. do they even list “ also receiving votes” ?

No because there are no votes. A bunch of people just sit in a smoke filled room until 25 teams are chosen. I just read somewhere that JMU can't appear in the CFP rankings since they are not bowl eligible so that's one less team ahead of us. I assume they will rank every P5 with 2 losses or less ahead of us plus air force, Fresno state and Tulane which puts us around 30th.

Last week we were on 8 ballots out of 63 with the highest rank being 22, this week we are on 22 ballots with the highest rank being 17. Heading into next week #22 kansas, #24 USC, #25 K State and #26 OK state are expected to lose based on the spread with #20 UCLA and #23 JMU favored by less than a touchdown. If we win comfortably we should be ranked next week in the AP poll. CFP rankings feel like a longshot.

The frustrating part is that after the CFP rankings come out, that’s what is used to show top 25 on most websites and broadcasts so being ranked in the AP loses most of its value.

I don't think I care much about rankings, unless it's after the season is over and we're celebrating a conference championship and a bowl game victory. We know we aren't going to show up in the CFP and our chances at a NY6 Bowl are relatively small.

Does it make much sense to have AF and JMU so far ahead of us? Nope... not one bit. However, I'd rather us have that as ammo to put to good use and keep a chip on our shoulder to finish out the year. We play better if we feel like we have something to prove. That's one thing I like about Chadwell is he celebrates wins, but also keeps the players humble by pointing out mistakes in the post-game press conferences.

If we just keep winning... that will solve all of our problems and they won't be able to ignore us.

I 100% understand your take. And I’m with you.

However, its college football. Perceived success snowballs unlike professional sports. Every time our name shows up on the bottom line potential recruits see it. Every time a fan looks at games that are scheduled to potentially watch the default is top 25.

You can say it doesn’t matter to you and that’s fair, however it’s “free” advertising for the university every time our name flashes as a top 25 team on the various screens. It brings more eyeballs to the university.

Of course the players/coaches shouldn’t be too hung up on it as they have games to focus on.

I've tried searching for this information before, but I'm curious if any you have seen this information.

How many impressions per week does being the 25th ranked team vs. the 26th unranked team create?

You have the bottom line of most sports channels flashing top 25 scores and ESPN.com and other websites showing you when top 25 teams are playing. Articles are written exclusively on the top 25 teams. TV shows dedicated to highlighting top 25 teams and who they are playing.

What would a team pay per week to simply show up in the top 25 ranking (not actually changing their roster)? I've always found that an interesting question. I have to guess it's in the hundreds of thousands per week, but that is simply an uneducated guess, so if anyone has any actual data, I'd love to see it.

I bet if you played around on Google trends for a little while you can find out if their is a correlation. Beyond that I'm not sure where you would find that data. I do know that 2020 was the year we spent the most weeks ranked and the number of people googling some variation of "liberty flames football" has generally continued to increase since then despite not being ranked as often.

I mean, 2020 is what opened many people’s eyes to the fact that Liberty even had a football program.