[A.G.]

That is pretty much my point in admitting I was wrong in bashing him for the schedule--he knew what I didn't. I just hope he gets a better schedule for next year.

[Chris Lang]

He has no reason not to ... the young pups got their experience. I agree.

[WinthropEagleFan]

A.G. -- all due respect, but there is no way that any Liberty team with 32 wins would ever sniff an at-large bid to the NCAA baseball tournament. Nor Winthrop. Nor Coastal.

In 2002, Elon (who was still in the Big South at the time) finished in 2nd place in the regular season conference race (with a record of 13-8), only won one game in the conference tourney, had a record of 34-21 on Selection Monday, and got an at-large bid (their RPI was 45th). They won 2 out of 3 at Miami, beat Clemson when the Tigers were #1 in the country and played a decent, but not overly tough schedule. So 40 wins is a nice benchmark, but it is no guarantee that you'll get in, and not getting to 40 won't keep you out if you have beaten some good teams and have a solid RPI...

[A.G.]

W.E.F. Now THAT is some crack research!

[WinthropEagleFan]

W.E.F. Now THAT is some crack research!

Well, I just remember watching the selection show that year and being floored when I saw Elon get a bid...They had a solid team that year, but with their record, I just didn't think they had done enough to get it (it's tough for an SEC team to get in with that record)...but a few wins over some of the best teams in the country goes a long way in the committees mind...

[Chris Lang]

Good stuff WEF.

If you schedule those games, you have to win your share. Then a 35-win resume is much more palatable to the committee.

[WinthropEagleFan]

Good stuff WEF.

If you schedule those games, you have to win your share. Then a 35-win resume is much more palatable to the committee.

Good point...you can play Clemson and Miami and Georgia Tech all you want, but if you go 0-10 against them, then it doesn't really matter...But win a series (especially on the road) against those types of teams, and that will be a tremendous boost to your tourney resume.

[thesportscritic]

Good stuff WEF.

If you schedule those games, you have to win your share. Then a 35-win resume is much more palatable to the committee.

Good point...you can play Clemson and Miami and Georgia Tech all you want, but if you go 0-10 against them, then it doesn't really matter...But win a series (especially on the road) against those types of teams, and that will be a tremendous boost to your tourney resume.

All good points WEF. Hopefully we can at least schedule some of the tougher teams next season and see how we measure up to them.

[Hold My Own]

I think with a good season this year we can see a bump in the SOS, I think it prob. just had to do with a few down years and maybe for a morale time thing....maybe

[A.G.]

Silly me. I always thought the past couple of years the schedule was about a "keeping your job, thing."

[bigsmooth]

here is the latest RPI for the big south:

19. winthrop
70. birmingham southern
100. coastal
106. LIBERTY
127. high point
152. unc-asheville
166. VMI
179. chuck south
271. radford

[A.G.]

Correct me if I am wrong, but LU sets a D-I record for wins and the RPI DROPS from last year??

Coaches, if you dare read this, I will word this as succinctly as possible:

please put together a REAL FREAKING SCHEDULE NEXT YEAR!!!

[Sly Fox]

We are losing a slew of seniors who were the core of our potent offense. We'll see how much we upgrade our schedule.

[A.G.]

Don't try to justify Royer AGAIN playing a cupcake "pad the wins so I can keep my job" schedule.

Coastal had the same thing happen after last year (lost quality seniors), upgraded their schedule, had a near or sub .500 record, and finished 6 spots ahead of us in the RPI playing a boat load of young guys. THAT is how you build a program.

[prototype]

A.G. You are completely out of line.

Give me a break. Who are you? You couldn't schedule games for the Forest Little League.

If you had a clue - you might stop bashing the schedule and looking at the real reason our SOS was not so high - THE PEOPLE WE PLAYED DIDN'T HAVE THEIR BEST YEARS. I can't believe we can keep putting this on Coach Royer. GW won over 40 games last year - they did not last year. We have never beat Marist - not with Hunton or the so loved Pastors. Rutgers, JMU, VT, VCU, GMU, Richmond, Virginia (Coach cancelled this - NOT ROYER), W & M are all good teams. You know what Coach needs to get some respect? - the De Lorean from the Back to the Future Movie. Maybe Marty McFly will let him use it next year so he can make sure the teams he scheduled will go undefeated and be ranked in the top 20. Maybe Royer should schedule games against all top 25 teams next year - oh yeah, getting teams to fly into Greensboro, drive in and have to play a day game, because there are no LIGHTS, and have a chance to lose to Liberty will be attractive to the Miami's, Georgia Tech's, and Florida's...

This isn't about the SOS - it's about having respect for a team and a coach who laid it all on the line this season. Had one of the best seasons in LU history - won 39 DIVISION I games, was the first team to sweep GW at home in over 10 years, beat Winthrop (Best Team in America by everyone on this board) twice in the tournament, won 16 of their first 19 games, 26 of their first 34, won 9 straight games TWICE, Got to the Championship game in the Big South ----- And you want to know the best thing - DID ALL OF THIS WITH ARGUABLY THE YOUNGEST PITCHING STAFF IN LU HISTORY (7 of 14 pitchers were freshman) AND 2 STATERS HURT FOR MOST THE YEAR (Solbach and Page).

Instead of giving the Team and Coach Royer some credit and a pat on the back - so many people want to offer criticism. Let's enjoy the success and maybe look to deflect some off this to the Big South. After all - it was them who broke their own rules on Saturday. To make LU play 3 games in one day was ridiculous. And yes 3 games. We had to finish up 2 innings on the game that ended at 11 p.m. the night before at 11:00a.m. the next day. And don't make the argument it was only 2 innings - they had to show up 2 and 1/2 hours before to go through normal warm-up for that game. Then play the early game against Winthop at 2:15 and then play the championship game pretty much right after. Come on this is the BIG SOUTH TOURNAMENT - this is what these guys play for all year. Did Sunday just go away? Couldn't the Championship game been moved to Sunday? As far as I understand - some players could barely walk after the day ended at 11 p.m. It felt like a Church League Softball Tournament. What a bad way to close out a successful Big South Season:(

Sorry, I had to vent - this stuff burns me up. I don't care if you think I'm just a Liberty fan. It's not, I'm a sports fan and can see that this team was good. We are doing these players and coaches a disservice by criticizing their efforts this year.

I say to the 2006 LU Baseball Team and Head Coach Matt Royer -

GREAT SEASON and I can't wait until next year - to see you grow from this successful season!!!!!!!

GO FLAMES!!!!!!!!!

[PAmedic]

WOW.

not much else to say, other than allright PROTO!

Again, congrats to Coach and the guys!

[WinthropEagleFan]

I was a bit surprised that they had you guys play UNCA on Saturday too...I figured if it got to that point, they would move the game to Sunday....

[prototype]

You would have to think if Winthrop won that game against us - they would have moved it.

Coach Royer petitioned, but they said no. Would they want to tire out Winthrop before Regionals???

I'm sure they would have moved it - but not for Liberty.

[WinthropEagleFan]

You would have to think if Winthrop won that game against us - they would have moved it.

Coach Royer petitioned, but they said no. Would they want to tire out Winthrop before Regionals???

I'm sure they would have moved it - but not for Liberty.

No, I don't think they would've moved the game in that situation since that would've only been WU's second game of the day...

But I was always under the impression that they would only have a team play three games in one day only if absolutely necessary.

[Chris Lang]

A quick add to Prototype's thoughts, re: the schedule.

A lot of schools that used to play LU, like Wake Forest and Old Dominion, went through coaching changes and no longer are interested in playing the Flames in Lynchburg.

You can bash the schedule all you want, but I'm still of the belief that had Liberty played a full slate of teams like Miami, Clemson, Texas and Rice in the preseason, the Flames would have never gotten within sniffing distance of the Big South tournament championship game. They weren't prepared, pitching-wise, to play against competition like that in February and March, and it would have done nothing but broken the confidence of a team in need of a fast start.

To get an RPI in the 20s like Winthrop, you have to schedule up and WIN some of those games, like the Eagles did. Like Elon did several years ago, etc.

On the tournament: Let's put it this way. I was sitting under a tent at the top of the stands all day where the wind at least cooled things off a little bit, and I sweat through two shirts and drank at least eight bottles of water. I couldn't even imagine trying to play 20 innings of baseball in that heat. As Phillip Laurent told me afterward, he had pushed his body to limits that he had no clue he could achieve. It was not an easy day. And while Liberty was battling Winthrop for 3 1/2 hours, Asheville was sitting in the air conditioning getting ready for the game. That's the breaks, but there was a definite rhyme and reason to what happened that night, and to discount the heat and just call it "an excuse" would be completely ignorant.

[A.G.]

Give me a break. Who are you? You couldn't schedule games for the Forest Little League.

I have enough of a clue to know that Forest plays DIXIE YOUTH and not Little League.

Proto--I agree that the team had a FANTASTIC year and deserve to be congratulated. The coaches did a good job in motivating the players and have them ready to play hard every single game.

HOW-EV-A: The coaches should also be open for questioning due to the calibre of the schedule. Sure, some of the teams had lousy years, but we had the same discussion ad nauseam early in the year--that the SoS would come back to haunt the team.

As a Flames fan, I root for the uniform and the students that don it. I am passionate about it and I respect all those who represent the university proudly. As such, I will NOT sit idly by if I think there might be "a better way."

Proto--I also respect you and your opinions, not to mention appreciate your passion. It's just we are on different sides of the fence on this one.

[Guest]

Proto you know the SOS is a complete joke and you know it. the other schools found a way to make theirs good why shouldn't we expect the same. like so many have said before this is the worst schedule we've ever seen here and this team could have handled a much much better one

[prototype]

Nicely said Chris.

[A.G.]

Chris, I agree 100%. What a brutal day for the guys to go through.

[Guest]

I find it interesting that SOS continues to be a discussion, when we couldn't even beat the sub-200 non-conference teams on our schedule this season. We loss to Richmond and William and Mary and coming into the tournament had lost 8 of our last 13. In addition, we dropped 2 of 3 to Rutgers at home in a weekend series.

So, you guys can argue SOS all you want, it really is a moot point. We were never getting an at-large bid and we all know it. If aren't beating who we scheduled, then how were we going to beat Clemson, Rice, etc. Plus, history is against us as we have never gotten an at-large bid.

It is nice to think with your heart and wanted this team to get an at-large, but it just wasn't happening, even if we would have played stronger teams. Ask Old Dominion. They had one of the best records in the country, lost a lot of games late and they didn't make the tournament.

You also brought up Coastal and going .500 against a tougher schedule. They had to win the tournament or else. Their .500 record was not getting them an at-large. We may have been able to get 32-35 wins, but based on Old Domionion being left out, it would not have mattered.

I agree we didn't play a strong schedule, but in reality, it doesn't matter as we lost to several 200+ RPI teams and unless we won some of those games which would have been few and far between, we would not have had the record.

Enjoy the good season, give the guys credit and move on!