[Sly Fox]

703 speaks much truth. Like it or not, we are not the most popular school in the academic or athletic worlds based on who we are. It is why we are in the Big South. It also played a significant role in our snub.

Don't be such a stranger on here, 703.

[Sly Fox]

Here is the reax from our boys via Chris ...

Playoff snub fires up Flames, Rocco

By Chris Lang
Sports writer
Published: November 23, 2008

The glitch in ESPNU’s broadcast sent Liberty football coach Danny Rocco into a frenzy.

The ticker at the bottom of the screen leaked the final two playoff matchups before they were announced, and once Rocco saw “Maine” on the board, he lost it.

Rocco yelled and stomped out of the donor room at Liberty’s football operations center while the rest of the players sat in stunned silence. The Flames’ season officially ended Sunday when they weren’t among the 16 teams included in the FCS playoff field.

Click Here for Full Story

[Rooster Cogburn]

Great stuff from coach.

I love to hear him fired up!
Makes me feel better

[Baldspot]

Maine’s inclusion took everyone by surprise. None of the writers from the College Sporting News projected Maine into the field, including one writer who specializes in covering CAA football.

I was okay not making it, thinking there was a better team (W&M) but then Maine. Please. Only two wins over teams with winning records.

[Kolzilla41]

I hope every single voting member of the committee gets a personal phone call from Rocco, kinda like they did the last three games. On a serious note, it is a very good thing we get that auto bid in 2010 because otherwise it would kill our recruiting. No one would want to come here and play their heart out only to get snubbed and left out of the playoffs.

[4everfsu]

Whether they hate us or not, losing to PC made it easy for them not to pick us. I read somewhere PC has half the scholarships to give then LU to their players. Is that true?

[Baldspot]

Maine's best win was against 7-5 UMass.

[flamesfilmguy]

So help me if i hear or see one more person on here or AGS talk about our status as an evangelical university being the reason we were left out of the playoffs i'm going to go postal. (with apologies to postman) In now way shape or form does that effect whether we got in or not. its the fact that the CAA has the committee bowing down to it because the chairman is a CAA AD. Its because we lost to presby. its because the chairman basically didn't know our record or that we were even considered(you should go find his interview he couldn't tell the interviewer why we didn't make it in). sorry. i'll stop for now

[Rooster Cogburn]

Maine's best win was against 7-5 UMass.

Yep and only 2 wins against winning teams and ZERO against ranked teams. "Hey guys, let's put Maine in OK?", "OK, Give me another shot, will ya?"

[NJLibertyboy]

Agreed. I don't think religion had anything to do with it. William and Mary and even Elon had a better argument for inclusion than Maine, and you can't say religion kept them out.

[olldflame]

What I don't understand is; if pro-CAA bias was at the root of this ........................... why not W&M?

Could it be as simple/stupid as the fact that because Maine beat the comittee chairman's mediocre UMass team, he decided they deserved to be in?

[NJLibertyboy]

I think that is more of a logical argument. The CAA bias was proven to a certain extent with Maine, but JMU has it tough because they set the Dukes up with a tough matchup against Wofford. I think it may have been stupidity more than anything else that kept us out and maybe the shear fact that he was probably uninformed about our schedule and the rest of FCS college football.

[Rooster Cogburn]

So shouldn't someone address the process and how the committee is selected. I can't believe the dummy didn't even know our record or anything about us!

[Ed Dantes]

i don't think they have the internet in Maine yet. without using google, can anyone name the capital of Maine? i couldn't. i know it's not their fault for getting in over us, but i can't help but dislike them right now.

Augusta.

[ROBBED08]

You know the thing I still can't figure out. How a team gets penalized for winning? I mean the consistent arguement that I hear is that we lost to Presby and Laffy, but Maine lost to a D-1 opponent and three ranked teams. We beat 2 ranked teams. I know that it all figures into your GPI and ranking and all but seriously the big win of the year a home game against a 7-5 Umass team that was never ranked, what a resume!

[Ed Dantes]

So shouldn't someone address the process and how the committee is selected. I can't believe the dummy didn't even know our record or anything about us!

They said on the broadcast that the committee deliberated for three hours before making the selection...

If not us, then seriously, why not William & Mary? They had a better Sagarin Rating than Maine (full disclosure: Maine was better than Liberty). Both teams lost to JMU. Both teams lost to Richmond. Both teams lost to a FCS playoff team. Both teams lost to a I-A opponent. Both teams beat Delaware, Rhode Island and Northeastern... And yet one lost to New Hampshire, and the other beat won... guess which one is sitting home right now.

It can't be economics, because it's not like the Northeast is going without representation. New Hampshire is in the tourney.

[FlameNForest]

You know the thing I still can't figure out. How a team gets penalized for winning? I mean the consistent arguement that I hear is that we lost to Presby and Laffy, but Maine lost to a D-1 opponent and three ranked teams. We beat 2 ranked teams. I know that it all figures into your GPI and ranking and all but seriously the big win of the year a home game against a 7-5 Umass team that was never ranked, what a resume!

It is strange that the number of better losses outweighed the better wins. I think it has something to do with that liberal elite rationale.

[ROBBED08]

Ed Dantes are you freaking kidding me. How many Maine games have you been to this year? How many countless hours of film have you studied on Maine? Or are you just a box score expert? Saying that Maine is better than Liberty is about as ignorant a comment that I have ever seen on this forum. Hey lets give them a thumbs up for being "battle tested" ohh thats right they lost every big game they played so maybe they should be refered to a "battle beaten" The NCAA committee is like the CAA's grandmother or something, "Its ok Maine we know you didn't win, but you tried real hard and you played good honey." Are you kidding me Maine could not score a touchdown on the defense I saw Saturday in Williams Stadium or even a point for that matter. And if you were an informed "fan" ( I use that term lightly because true fans actually believe in their team) you would know that the reason the JMU-Maine game wasn't a blow out was because there was a monsoon up there, not really condusive to a high scoring game. The third best team in the conference Richmond beat the breaks of of them.

[BJWilliams]

Ed Dantes are you freaking kidding me. How many Maine games have you been to this year? How many countless hours of film have you studied on Maine? Or are you just a box score expert? Saying that Maine is better than Liberty is about as ignorant a comment that I have ever seen on this forum. Hey lets give them a thumbs up for being "battle tested" ohh thats right they lost every big game they played so maybe they should be refered to a "battle beaten" The NCAA committee is like the CAA's grandmother or something, "Its ok Maine we know you didn't win, but you tried real hard and you played good honey." Are you kidding me Maine could not score a touchdown on the defense I saw Saturday in Williams Stadium or even a point for that matter. And if you were an informed "fan" ( I use that term lightly because true fans actually believe in their team) you would know that the reason the JMU-Maine game wasn't a blow out was because there was a monsoon up there, not really condusive to a high scoring game. The third best team in the conference Richmond beat the breaks of of them.

I appreciate your passion but if you read his post a little more carefully youd see (in a sentence about William and Mary)...

They had a better Sagarin Rating than Maine (full disclosure: Maine was better than Liberty).

He was referring to their Sagarin rating.

[Sly Fox]

Robbed - Ed was not saying the Bears were a better team. He was stating Maine was ranked higher in the Sagarin rankings.

[Sly Fox]

From the Bangor fishwrap ...

The Black Bears, one of eight at-large squads selected for the 16-team field, are making their first postseason appearance since 2002, when they reached the national quarterfinals and lost at Georgia Southern.

“You hope people recognize you and respect you enough to put you in,” Cosgrove said Sunday night. “I think Black Bear football’s being respected by being invited into this tournament.”

UMaine is one of five teams from the Colonial Athletic Association to earn a playoff berth as determined by the NCAA Division I Football Championship Committee. Regular-season champion James Madison (10-1) won the automatic bid and is the No. 1 national seed, while New Hampshire (9-2), Villanova (9-2) and Richmond (9-3) also grabbed at-large bids.

Cosgrove explained the CAA actually went to bat for UMaine, lobbying for the Bears as the fifth team rather than trying to make a case for both UMaine and William & Mary.

“What it speaks to is our conference. Look at the power index,” Cosgrove said of the nation’s top-rated FCS league, which also put five teams in the field last year, including a 7-4 New Hampshire squad. “In Gridiron Power Index, we’re fifth in the conference and 12th in the country.”

William & Mary was sixth and 14th, respectively, he said.

Click Here for Full Story

[whmatthews]

No Iona next year???? Is it possible to schedule Maine, in Maine?

[ROBBED08]

My apologies Mr Dantes but as a broken hearted, departing member of the ROBBED 2008 Liberty Flames football team I am feeling a lot like madmat I have been crapin and cryin lemons for almost 24 hours

[ROBBED08]

When addressing his University of Maine football team after Saturday’s gut-wrenching loss to New Hampshire, head coach Jack Cosgrove planted a positive thought in the heads of his teary-eyed players.

“I told them in the locker room, ‘don’t go to bed at night giving up hope,’” he explained. “‘[Good] things can happen, they always have.’”

Yeah things always do happen!
-The CAA always gets there butt powdered by the NCAA committee
-Wofford gets woofed
-And now the latest installment of "things that always happen" Liberty never gets a stinkin chance

["R" i "]

I am thinking of making the trip to JMU, as originally planned, wearing my red, spending the entire game yelling profanaties about the selection comittee.


not really. just dreaming.