[tyndal23]

This from Bury Your Duke who makes fun of me for wanting LU to go P5 scheduling philosophy 8 years from now ? As for big name - we have Syracuse at home week 1 our first official year as FBS. This is still a transition year...

[ballcoach15]

It would have been great to have gotten a P5 school for September 1, 2018. ( Regardless of score)

[BJWilliams]

Here's what we have to compete with regionally next Saturday

UVA hosts Richmond at 6
JMU travels to NC State (that game is at noon though)
Tech is at Florida State on Sunday

With us and Uva being the games in town, it'll be a major marketing challenge to try and get the people out to Williams Stadium for our game. Only having one other D1-FBS to compete with regionally will help, but it still would be a challenge

[Jonathan Carone]

Are we now making excuses for a potentially lower than expected crowd only weeks after people here were predicting we’d have 25,000 for the same game?

[Class of 20Something]

It would have been great to have gotten a P5 school for September 1, 2018. ( Regardless of score)

Agree to disagree. Remember, there are around 3800 freshman incoming that this is their first football game. Do not dissuade them from attending football games for the next four years just because you want a bigger name. Give us an achievable opponent and make the students fall in love with a close game.

[BJWilliams]

I'm sorry BC, but I gotta disagree here. To see us get walloped by a P5 in our first FBS game, at home, would be a crushing blow right from the outset

[ballcoach15]

One will never know if we would have got "crushed". There are people in America (maybe even Lynchburg), who probably said we would be crushed at Baylor last year. If my memory is right, we have played better than expected vs every P5 school we have played in past few years.

Regardless, there would be more buzz in Lynchburg if a P5 school was coming, than ODU. I still think of ODU as a "basketball school".

[amar0819]

Yall sound like a bunch of ungrateful kids....this is the last of a transition year..... which we could still qualify for a bowl game. ODU is an amazing first FBS game to have! If people cant get excited for an in state team thats had more success then us lately then stay at home and play fort night...You people forgot they had limited time to throw together this schedule...be thankful that the first game is even home! Idk the stat but im willing to bet my next paycheck that MOST teams that transition dont have a FBS team at home for the first game. Smh I usually agree with what most of you say but this is ridiculous. Rant over.

[Cider Jim]

About the 6 wins we need to make the bowl game, if we beat both FCS teams, do they count toward our 6-win requirement?

[CapnMac]

About the 6 wins we need to make the bowl game, if we beat both FCS teams, do they count toward our 6-win requirement?

I believe only 1 FCS win counts towards the 6 needed for bowl qualification, but I could be wrong.

[Jonathan Carone]

Stop it with your intelligent discussion based in information and facts.

[jbock13]

I’m very excited about the upcoming season.

Then I realize that with Gill still here, we’ll probably go 3-9.

[BJWilliams]

Here's my take: I love having ODU as our first opponent as an FBS program. I grew up in the 757 (99 percent of you know that already). When it came down to where I was going to attend college, it came down to ODU and Liberty. My hometown college and a school I had barely heard of before I visited in 2001. I ended up at Liberty, and while I spent 7 years getting my degree, it was the best 7 years of my life. ODU will always be my hometown school, but Liberty is MY school, my alma mater, and the first school I will root for before anyone else. When I saw that ODU was reviving the football program, I hoped that they would play LU. After they beat LU in their only prior game, I looked forward to the opportunity for payback, and when I saw the 2018 schedule, and saw ODU on the top, I knew who I would be rooting for, and it wasn't the Monarchs. I unfortunately will not be able to attend the game in person in the interest of keeping my job, but you better believe I will be wearing my red and supporting LU next Saturday night, and I sure as heck hope everyone who was wanting a P5 to be our first home game, or first game in general, will do the same.

[thepostman]

I'm super excited at the beginning of every season because the logical side of my brain doesn't work properly because of the lack of football. then we start to suck and I can once again approach things logically.

[Jonathan Carone]

ODU was in the top ten schools for best first game.

[flameshaw]

At the risk of here, other than a new facility and being “FBS”, what is there to get people excited about? And those two things have a diminishing effect.

Most people are likely over the oohs and ahhs of new facilities at LU. It happens all the time.

And does anyone other than people like us and some students really care about being FBS at this point? In the future if we are competitive against recognizable names, then yes absolutely. Right now? I’m not so sure it brings out many new people. And if it does, will they come back after they see what Coach Gill does on the field?

Three 6-5 season’s in a row has a way of killing enthusiasm.

I would be elated with a 6-5 record this year. I would even give TG another year if that happened. IMVVVHO, a good/dynamic/inventive, coach would get us to that record.

[Jonathan Carone]

Part of why I was hoping we’d make a move last year is because this program needs the energy boost. Yes FBS and the new stadium is nice, but the overshadowed piece of that is we’ve not been good in FCS so there’s no reason the think we’d be good now. With a new coach who showed some personality and let the fans get to know him, there’d be ten times the excitement and intrigue there is now.

[flameshaw]

Yall sound like a bunch of ungrateful kids....this is the last of a transition year..... which we could still qualify for a bowl game. ODU is an amazing first FBS game to have! If people cant get excited for an in state team thats had more success then us lately then stay at home and play fort night...You people forgot they had limited time to throw together this schedule...be thankful that the first game is even home! Idk the stat but im willing to bet my next paycheck that MOST teams that transition dont have a FBS team at home for the first game. Smh I usually agree with what most of you say but this is ridiculous. Rant over.

Good post.

[flameshaw]

Part of why I was hoping we’d make a move last year is because this program needs the energy boost. Yes FBS and the new stadium is nice, but the overshadowed piece of that is we’ve not been good in FCS so there’s no reason the think we’d be good now. With a new coach who showed some personality and let the fans get to know him, there’d be ten times the excitement and intrigue there is now.

Yep

[jinxy]

Believe it or not TG actually showed a bit on the callin show though it was about chocolate cake and AY had to kind of lead him there. Hes slightly more entertaining than layer used to be but he def seems more of a low energy type personality.

In all honesty what better game could we have gotten for the opener. In state, fbs and someone we can compete against. Especially considering time constraints i cant think of a better first game unless you could get a beatup uva or ecu. Weve been recruiting against them more lately. I think its a good chance to develop a rivalry.

[Purple Haize]

Somehow my phenomenal post about ODU didn’t make it to the Board. Hmm
In short, ODU is pretty much the PERFECT game to start the FBS chapter at LU. It would be a well attended game regardless of when it was played. An In State FBS school that LU can compete against will draw. Add to that the excitement of the ‘shiny new thing’ that is FBS and that boosts attendance a few thousand. It’s a great benchmark to see where the LU fan base is in regards to being #FBSready. If 20k do not actually attend the game (assuming weather holds) than that’s a huge Red Flag.
Your other whiz bang option would have been to lure a ‘Big Name’ team in to LU. But the problem with using that as a measuring stick is that people would be coming to see ‘Big Name School’ as opposed to LU

[rtb72]

Although I have been a critic of HCTG in the past, as the season approaches I have become more an more excited. It will most likely be a ho-hum same as usual performance....but as for now, I'm hopeful yet practical. I would think HCTG knows the stakes for his continued tenure, as this is not Ian's first rodeo. I'm sure the expectations are both conveyed and understood. I think we have the talent to at least be competitive with most teams this year, and only time will tell. My family and I will be at every home game as usual....good or bad, but this is probably not the norm for most fans. At the end of the day though, winning puts" butts in seats" (as PH says). There is nothing more or less to add. It's simply the way it is. One only need to look at Duke FB in the 90's and early 2000's...they used to give away tickets to area churches just to have people in the stands. No particular team or amount of construction can provide for sustained interests or attendance....only winning can do that. Maybe HCTG can still bring that to fruition, I really don't know, but that's what it will take to get where we want to go. **Side note** Duke had three or four HC changes before finally bringing Cutcliffe on board....he has changed the perception of Duke Football....he did it by winning football games again.

[R i]

As happens to me every season, the closer we get to kickoff, the more my koolaid drink runneth over.


If Gill wins 6 games and lands a top 85 recruiting class, I believe not only is he the man for the transition job, but he is the guy for foreseeable future. Go Gill, and Go Flames!

[TH Spangler]

As happens to me every season, the closer we get to kickoff, the more my koolaid drink runneth over.


If Gill wins 6 games and lands a top 85 recruiting class, I believe not only is he the man for the transition job, but he is the guy for foreseeable future. Go Gill, and Go Flames!

I find it very hard to not pull for Turner. 4 wins and I'm pleased. Go Gill go Flames.

[BJWilliams]

As frustrating as the past few seasons have been, I'm pulling for him as well. For as critical as some on here have been and calling for a new coach, I'm guessing that deep down in their hearts, they aren't actively wanting HCTG to fail this year. They want him to succeed, even if they aren't sure he will. And in full disclosure, I'm not completely sure either, even as I'm hopeful that he does.