[Purple Haize]

Can we talk about the Oct 14 to Nov 1 break?


https://www.aseaofred.com/libertys-2025 ... -released/

[Dalegarz1]

Too long! You can certainly rationalize that we could use a couple of weeks to get healthy but it’s tough to find any rhythm with an extended break. Ideally, I would like to drop Maine and pickup a quality opponent. Of course that might mean losing a home game.

[jbock13]

Why not drop Maine and play a true road game against one of the worst teams in FBS?

Oh, wait...

[Ill flame]

I’ve been pretty sleep deprived lately and was distractedly looking at this schedule at first and I couldn’t help but see Maine, Jacksonville st, JMU, Delaware, Missouri st and kennesaw state on our schedule and forget what subdivision we are in for a minute. That’s not counting the other half of our schedule which is a bunch of historically bad FBS schools.

Moving to CUSA was the right move but we need to get out of here quickly or I’m afraid we are going to get stuck in neutral.

[AATL]

No disrespect intended to our conference colleagues, especially after last season.. but this is a rather generously light schedule. I'd certainly hope Liberty makes an appearance in the CUSA championship game.

Missouri State and Deleware instead of WKU and SHSU is pretty favorable. This schedule is heavily front loaded, so at least we'll find out pretty quickly what kind of year it will be.

[TH Spangler]

Midweek games in October are a disaster in my opinion. Few watch. CBSSN is just slightly better than ESPN+. Disconnects the conference from NCAA Saturdays. I guess some need the $ it brings. I'll be glad when it ends.

[ballcoach15]

I will probably boycott JMU and Delaware games. I loved the days when we played Arkansas, VT, BYU, Ole Miss etc.
Granted, the P4 schools probably are refusing to play Liberty. But playing JMU and Delaware doesn't take program to the next level.

[LUOrange]

I love playing JMU & ODU. Playing Maine or any other FCS team until CUSA improves in rankings is stupid. We should be playing at minimum another G6, like we did in 2023. I'm also not sure why we agreed to this CUSA schedule that gives us a 10 day break before 2 midweeks and then 18 days off until we return to Saturdays. This is worse than not playing WKU & SHSU.

The weak scheduling in football (and MBB) is starting to irritate me. The excuses are falling on deaf ears and it ridicules the success the teams do have. McCaw really needs to fix both the weak scheduling and the poor scheduling (calendar wise). IMO, it's ridiculous to raise season ticket prices with this schedule and having midweeks. The consolation is having JMU and only 1 midweek this year. The same goes for MBB. Our home non-conference schedule was atrocious.

And for the water carriers on here, I'm not saying that we have to be playing Notre Dame and Alabama. Just saying that their response to the "good teams won't play us" mantra has been poor. And I love Liberty & Liberty Athletics. I think the world of McCaw and McKay, but calling them out on the scheduling is constructive and warranted.

[Humble_Opinion]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised anymore at the reactions from our fanbase. Did I enjoy the independent schedule better because of the names we were able to get? Yeah... it was a ton of fun being at the BYU and VT games; however, circumstances outside of our control changed and we took the best course of action we had in front of us. We joined a weakened CUSA that had to be rebuilt from scraps. Our SOS was always going to go down as a result. From the time we joined CUSA, McCaw has consistently talked about his non-conference scheduling philosophy. We will be playing P4 teams again starting next year. And we are achieving the goal of playing against solid non-conference G5 teams.

All that to say, everything above has been a known quantity since 2022. Why are people still bellyaching about it to the point of questioning McCaw's job or saying you're going to "boycot" purchasing tickets. It's asinine.

[Sly Fox]

First off, I LOVE having our bye week during October. Get it out of the way so that we can have more games on Saturdays.

It is disappointing to be missing both WKY & Sammy. But that is the nature of the expanded conference. Having both of the move-ups certainly sets us up for success in the win column. But we have to execute well with major roster turnover regardless of the schedule in front of us. Just win, baby!

On a personal level, it is nice to have a driveable game for two straight seasons. After having the game at Sam, it is only 5-hour drive to Rustin from my house. That is practically in our backyard in comparison to nearly every game in conference.

Once again, that game at FIU in November looks fun. The Saturday game date pairs up nicely with cruises leaving on Sunday during the shoulder season when prices drop before the holidays.

[flameshaw]

Not sure I understand the weak conference talk. It is obviously not the SEC, but if this is such a weak conference, seems like we should be dominating in the major sports. We are not doing that. Let's not get too far over our skis.
Would a stronger conference help us? Yes, to some degree. But we don't want to be a last place team in a major conference.

[TH Spangler]

Keep an eye on UTEP

[Sly Fox]

UTEP's class is propped up by two factors:

1. 5-star QB who transferred in after being at USC & Boise State for a year each and never seeing the field.
2. Emphasis of new coach on HS players after washing out with his FCS-heavy roster this past seaspon

[Ill flame]

Not sure I understand the weak conference talk. It is obviously not the SEC, but if this is such a weak conference, seems like we should be dominating in the major sports. We are not doing that. Let's not get too far over our skis.
Would a stronger conference help us? Yes, to some degree. But we don't want to be a last place team in a major conference.

Feels like it’s turning into an ASUN situation where we are just expected to win and anything less is a disappointment. That’s just not fun to watch on a week to week basis. I’m just ready to be in a conference full of schools with similar resources as us where it’s a dog fight every week. Going 13-0 last year was awesome but going 7-5 against a truly tough schedule with minimal cupcakes can also be a blast.

[Kricket]

I was going to make a longer post, but if you haven’t figured out why people would say C-USA is weak in football… I suppose you could post water is wet and get a debate in a message board.

[Purple Haize]

I was going to make a longer post, but if you haven’t figured out why people would say C-USA is weak in football… I suppose you could post water is wet and get a debate in a message board.

I get the CUSA and have 0 problems with it. But that long break seems odd.
It does appear we are going through the desert a little bit due to making adjustments because of joining a Conference. But in a season or two things look better. In the meantime let’s hope CUSA improves

[Kricket]

I was going to make a longer post, but if you haven’t figured out why people would say C-USA is weak in football… I suppose you could post water is wet and get a debate in a message board.

I get the CUSA and have 0 problems with it. But that long break seems odd.
It does appear we are going through the desert a little bit due to making adjustments because of joining a Conference. But in a season or two things look better. In the meantime let’s hope CUSA improves

Yeah, I have no problem on our decision to join C-USA. I think it was the right decision.

That being said I kind of figured we’d be able to schedule something of interest and in a reasonable way. I get not everyone wants to play us for a variety of reasons but at some point that starts to feel like an excuse.

The break does seem strange. As far as I can tell Missouri State and New Mexico State have 13 day gaps whereas we have 17. Who knows if it will come at a good time for us health wise to maybe heal up.

As a fan I certainly don’t like it.

[Ill flame]

ESPN just released their returning production rankings for next season. It doesn’t feel like it because of the portal chaos every offseason nowadays but LU is 15th in the country in returning production at 66%. We are 13th in the country on defense and 56th on offense. The article goes into more details on how it’s measured but it does factor in transfers production at previous schools. I’m sure the correlation isn’t as strong as it once was but returning production is still a very strong indicator of whether a team will improve or regress from their previous record so this bodes well for us.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/i ... -136-teams

[John_6_47]

Right now, I feel somewhat confident in everything but corner and QB (maybe OL, too). QB and OL will hopefully sort itself out, but can someone give me good news on CB? Do they expect improvement or is there a plan to get a transfer?

[Humble_Opinion]

Right now, I feel somewhat confident in everything but corner and QB (maybe OL, too). QB and OL will hopefully sort itself out, but can someone give me good news on CB? Do they expect improvement or is there a plan to get a transfer?

There appears to be a lot of healthy competition at CB. Dexter Ricks and Mo Williams return, as does Bodnar who missed the last several games due to illness. Behind them there are some relative unknowns, but I think there were some good things being said about Ronald Moore (R-FR) last year during camp before he got injured.

I think OL will continue to be an area of focus, though there appears to be a decent mix of returning contributors from last year and solid options from the transfer portal. From a size perspective, I hope the kid from Florida (Christian Williams) pans out. Bedosky, the transfer from UAB probably pushes for a starting role as well. OL is all about gelling and finding that right chemistry. We seemed to take a step backwards last year vs the prior year. Hopefully, we can right things up front.

[Humble_Opinion]

Has anyone heard anything about Darius Copeland? The staff was high on him through camp last year in thinking he could take that Bedgood type role on, but that shifted when he got injured early on. Now it appears that JuJu has the inside track on that spot. I'm curious where Copeland fits in now moving forward?