[R i]

Read and acknowledged. LOL

[Purple Haize]

You could have owned up to it instead of backpedaling faster than Jeremy Peters in press coverage ballcoach

Sgt Snowflake take ownership? Look who’s got jokes. Always someone else’s fault

[ballcoach15]

There will no coaching change for 2018, thus everyone needs to get behind current staff and hope for a good first season in FBS, to build a foundation for 2019, when we will be bowl eligible. (if we win 6 games).

Those who have their panties in a wad, I hope they get straightened out before Signing Day or Spring Practice.

[CCWMichael]

There will no coaching change for 2018, thus everyone needs to get behind current staff and hope for a good first season in FBS, to build a foundation for 2019, when we will be bowl eligible. (if we win 6 games).

Those who have their panties in a wad, I hope they get straightened out before Signing Day or Spring Practice.

If my panties were any more wadded I'd be going commando.
If Tony Dungy said it all good, It's all good.
I am behind the coaching staff .... every step.. by.. step.
GO FLAMES

[Class of 20Something]

Well, Kyle is comfortable staying for a while.

Brian R. Carlton and Elizabeth D. Sumpter, co-trustees to Kyle DeArmon. Lot 18, block 24, Westover Heights Subdivision, $144,500

[R i]

All this to say, I know we feel as a fan base that we are in for a humiliating FBS transition, but pump the brakes and enjoy the newness of the FBS era and the new talent that will come to the Mountain and help change the tide.

Recruiting is the one area Gill has proven himself elite for Liberty's situation. That, in my opinion is super important during the transition.

If you believe that this class was super important for the transition, then you can see why having Gill and company around has proved to be a benefit for the program. They are really turning it up on the recruiting front. With 4 , 3Star recruits verballed so far, LU is ahead of most Sun Belt schools , including Coastal. Keep it up Coach Gill and co.

[flameshaw]

No one has signed anything yet. Still have lots of holes to fill. Lost a RB today.

[ALAFlamesFan]

247 has our recruiting class ranked 122 at the moment. It may be the best in LU history but let's not get too cocky. There are 130 teams in FBS. We are firmly at the bottom. Talk to me when we make it out of the bottom 25 percent.

[Jonathan Carone]

If we kept a coach because of his ability to recruit in spite of his inability to develop, game plan, and coach those recruits then I have serious questions about our leadership.

[flameshaw]

If we kept a coach because of his ability to recruit in spite of his inability to develop, game plan, and coach those recruits then I have serious questions about our leadership.

The leadership that gave this coaching staff such unreasonable contracts is gone. That is a major reason they are still here, the early signing period didn't help at all either. But the combination of them both made decision to make a move immediately after the season untenable.
I would have made the move anyway and taken the hit, but I do understand why they came to the decision they did.

[Ewglenn]

If we kept a coach because of his ability to recruit in spite of his inability to develop, game plan, and coach those recruits then I have serious questions about our leadership.

I don't understand why it is so difficult for you to understand. There is a lot of money tied up and this isn't the time to reach for a coach just to make a change.

[Cider Jim]

I looked up ALAFF's numbers, and I'm very impressed that Coach Gill's staff has out recruited the following schools:
Hawaii
UNC-Charlotte
South Alabama
Buffalo
New Mexico State
New Mexico
Kent State

And even though its an FCS school, JMU is at #149, so we are way ahead of them in state; and we're within striking distance of Marshall (#117) and Coastal Carolina (#118). And this is still an FBS transition year for us. Congratulations to Coach Gill's staff in their successful recruiting!

https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Footb ... amRankings

[Ewglenn]

I looked up ALAFF's numbers, and I'm very impressed that Coach Gill's staff has out recruited the following schools:
Hawaii
UNC-Charlotte
South Alabama
Buffalo
New Mexico State
New Mexico
Kent State

And even though its an FCS school, JMU is at #149, so we are way ahead of them in state; and we're within striking distance of Marshall (#117) and Coastal Carolina (#118). And this is still an FBS transition year for us. Congratulations to Coach Gill's staff in their successful recruiting!

https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Footb ... amRankings

They also haven't updated the rankings. It has us as only 6 commits but on our page they have 9 listed.

[Jonathan Carone]

If we kept a coach because of his ability to recruit in spite of his inability to develop, game plan, and coach those recruits then I have serious questions about our leadership.

I don't understand why it is so difficult for you to understand. There is a lot of money tied up and this isn't the time to reach for a coach just to make a change.

I understand the money reasoning. I don’t buy the spin on keeping him because of his recruiting and can’t believe so many people have bought it.

[Purple Haize]

If we kept a coach because of his ability to recruit in spite of his inability to develop, game plan, and coach those recruits then I have serious questions about our leadership.

I don't understand why it is so difficult for you to understand. There is a lot of money tied up and this isn't the time to reach for a coach just to make a change.

I understand the money reasoning. I don’t buy the spin on keeping him because of his recruiting and can’t believe so many people have bought it.

The only part of the money deal I buy is that they were unable to get who they wanted at the price they wanted

[FlamesHighontheTide]

Something else to consider is that Sean Queen and JT Wood two of our 2 star WR don't even have profiles on 247. Which is not a knock on them. You have to go to a camp where they register you. Those two have been to camps for rivals but not 247. I say this to point out that we are missing two other 2 star recruits on our 247 rankings. Again, even after losing West yesterday of our 19 commitments 13 of them have been rated with stars! That is incredible. If we believe Emmanuel Caters dad who has posted his son is a 3 star then we have 5 of them.

Good times coming to the Burg fellas.

I would also anticipate another BIG recruiting weekend. But then again, aren't they all considered BIG, ha.

[Jonathan Carone]

The only part of the money deal I buy is that they were unable to get who they wanted at the price they wanted

And that’s concerning in its own right. I think many around her have severely underestimated how hard this independent thing is going to be.

[thepostman]

But we are FBS and have so much money! Easy day. We are the next Notre Dame!

[R i]

I understand the money reasoning. I don’t buy the spin on keeping him because of his recruiting and can’t believe so many people have bought it.

We do not know the biggest factors that lead to administration retaining Gill. We can guess. Gill has proven he can recruit LU at an Elite level. It had to be a factor.

[R i]

The only part of the money deal I buy is that they were unable to get who they wanted at the price they wanted

And that’s concerning in its own right. I think many around her have severely underestimated how hard this independent thing is going to be.

What is going to be so hard that "many around here severely underestimated" ?

Scheduling - that has been a home run
Recruiting ? - We are out recruiting more than half of the Sun Belt
Winning games ? - Have you read the expectations thread that you started ? Most think 3-4 games is the estimation
Attendance - Again the expectation is 17,000 by most people I am reading.

Again, I will ask, what part of FBS Indy is going to be so hard that many posters on ASOR msg board are underestimating ?

[Purple Haize]

But we are FBS and have so much money! Easy day. We are the next Notre Dame!

Yeah we were told by ‘sources’ that LU would have one of the Top 5 FBS coaches on the sideline next year
We were told by ‘sources’ that a ‘Package Deal’ was bringing former coaches back to the Mountain

[R i]

We do not know the biggest factors that lead to administration retaining Gill. We can guess. Gill has proven he can recruit LU at an Elite level. It had to be a factor.

I also do not believe Ian is lying to us when he said that recruiting was very important this season.

[Jonathan Carone]

Most fans expect 3-4 wins next year but most are saying they expect bowl eligibility in 2019.

As far as scheduling - we have some great games on the schedule and we’ve done a great job filling out the schedule, but these schedules are brutal. In 2019 we go five weeks without a home game and play five of our last seven on the road. You’ll also see fan fatigue with having four home games in five weeks to start the year.

In 2020 we have four road ACC games. While there are definite benefits of playing these games, if we don’t get significantly better extremely quick we are going to be losing games in demoralizing ways.

As for recruiting - we can’t be comparing ourselves to the Sun Belt when we are playing Conference USA or AAC type schedules. We like to look down on the Sun Belt because they denied us - which I get - but we are jumping from 6-5 FCS to mid-to-upper G5 scheduling.

I’ve watched Coastal closely this year to see how they navigated the transition. A team that was significantly better than us a year ago struggled to win two games. The toll of facing FBS rosters with FBS game plans week in and week out was harder than even the most realistic fans down there realized.

On top of all this - we are doing something that has literally never been done before. There has never been a private school transition from FCS to FBS. There has never been a school transition as an independent since the moratorium a decade or so ago. Whenever you pave a new road, it’s harder than you think it’s going to be.

Lastly, it’s not been proven you can consistently win at Liberty or that you could jump from Liberty to a better head coaching job. I don’t know that there’s ever been a head football coach at Liberty who had enough success to leave for a better job. Rocco to Richmond is the closest to that and that was marginally better. Other than Rocco, Liberty Football has been a career ender for most coaches. That’s concerning when you look at replacing Gill when the time comes.

One of these factors would be hard to overcome. We are trying to do all of them at once. There will be hard times and they will last longer than a year. It’s why so many were skeptical of going FBS Independent. We are here now and it’s all still shiny and new so we are still optimistic. We will see how different that is mid season next year when reality hits us.

[R i]

I am not seeing the logical posters on here saying bowl eligibility in 2019. I would say for myself that 2019 will likely be more of the same as 2018.

You make a good point about our schedule being upper G-5 and not comparing our recruiting to Sun Belt schools. You also make a valid point about program history for attracting coaches.

We have the facilities of course, and money needed to help ease some of the struggles of early transition blows. I also think we have a fan base and support that is very strong and will help during the transition with attendance and TV ratings. Lastly I believe we are set up for a successful transition with a top AD in the country. #InIanWeTrust

So I agree LU is charting new waters, with some potentially rocky times ahead of the football program, but I am optimistic because of the factors listed above we will not sink. I realize Coastal has been some what of a bust, and you could say their on the field talent was better than LU's at the time of transition. However as a program I like LU's chances to have a much more successful transition than the beach chickens.

[Jonathan Carone]

I also think we have a fan base and support that is very strong and will help during the transition with attendance and TV ratings.

I think we'll sit at what we had this year. The ODU (opener), Troy (name), and Idaho State (homecoming) games will help keep that average up and will probably all pull 18k or more. Norfolk State will be 14,000-15,000. North Texas is somewhere in the middle. New Mexico State will have 12 people at the game but probably 12k or so based on tickets. So we'll probably end up averaging around 16k next year which will be a very solid first year. It'll feel like less because of the new seating but will be nothing to scoff at.

Lastly I believe we are set up for a successful transition with a top AD in the country. #InIanWeTrust

I definitely trust Ian. I also don't know that he'll be here in 2019. Once his name is restored, someone will sweep in and steal him away. His talent exceeds where we are as a school. It's great to have him while we do though.

I realize Coastal has been some what of a bust, and you could say their on the field talent was better than LU's at the time of transition. However as a program I like LU's chances to have a much more successful transition than the beach chickens.

What is that optimism based on? I'm willing to buy it if it has a solid foundation. Right now I don't see that.