[jimflamesfan]

I have come around to embracing Football independence for now. I even wrote a parody song about us being left out in realignment this round and the death of CUSA. It's to the tune of Whitesnake's "Here I go Again".

"I don't know where we're going.
But I sure know where we've been.
Hanging on false hope from Conference USA...
But we've made up our minds, we aint wastin no more time.  So here we go again!

Though we keep thinkin we're the answer.
We're never quite what they're looking for...O Lord, we pray You give us strength to carry on.

Cause we know what it means...to beat Coastal's best two unbeaten teams. So here we go again.

Here we go again on our own.
The Sunbelt didnt want us. That is known!
We thought Marshall, the Herd might throw us a bone.
But they've made up their minds.  They arent wasting no more time.  So here we go again.

Just another conference in need of rescue,
Waiting for LU's sweet charity,
But now we're gonna hold out, for the rest of our days,
Cause they know what we mean, they turned down $24 million for us to play their teams.

So here their story ends.
But here we go again."

[Sly Fox]

Talk about a chaotic mess. It appears we will have a steady diet of UTEP, La Tech, MTSU, WKU & FIU in our scheduling moving forward. That's a good thing since it is going to be tough for us to land P5 home-and-homes or 2-for-1s moving forward now that we are no longer perceived as a cupcake.

While I was never enthusiastic about CUSA or the Belt, being left out completely puts us in a very uneviable position moving forward. Bowl leftovers and little to no chance of ever securing a playoff slot in a potential 12-team expansion is pretty bleak.

It does sound like the CUSA presidents rejected us once again. Once again, it would have been nice to have had a choice.

[Liberty22]

I disagree with the bleak outlook wholeheartedly, but y'all know that

[Sly Fox]

I am dying to find optimism in the mess of the past few days. Please give me a reason for optimism. Because I have not seen any reason to be optimistic based on anything in the past past five pages of this thread or anywhere else online.

[thepostman]

I understand why some people are so pro-independence but the perception right now about Liberty is that not even the Sun Belt or CUSA wants us. It isn't a good look and maybe things end up turning in our favor at some point but right now things do not look great.

It is also really hard for me to not think about how we may be in a totally different position if we had a legit college president and not someone who claims their doctorate from a clown college. These decisions aren't made by AD's alone, it is the school presidents who make the call and we just have no seat at that table right now.

The loss this past week, and really the entire football season, has proved that we still have a long ways to go at this level. So sure, it is fun to dream about becoming some kind of Indy powerhouse in the future but in reality that is not anywhere close to a reality.

Sorry Sly, you asked for optimism and then I shared a post...The Flames are playing in Texas this week...that is good, right?

[BlueBlood]

Sly, I said this on the last page:

All the schools that were G5 a week ago are still G5. They just switched conferences amongst themselves. They didn’t move ahead of LU.

If anything, LU is much closer to AAC level than it was a week ago. LU already beat UAB (future AAC) this year. Looking forward to hopefully seeing LU beat North Texas (future AAC) tomorrow.

Does that cheer you up?

[Liberty22]

I am dying to find optimism in the mess of the past few days. Please give me a reason for optimism. Because I have not seen any reason to be optimistic based on anything in the past past five pages of this thread or anywhere else online.

Lol, we’re still FBS and will continue to dominate our conference in other sports and win post season bids. The general CFB fan doesn’t see this realignment as no one wants LU. They see it as SB is expanding with so and so and CUSA is dying. We’re in a great position. I see way more cons going G5 conference then I do right now staying independent.

[jimflamesfan]

Sly...on one hand. It's very sad to think about college presidents thinking so little of us that they would rather their conference die than allow us to join.

However, the good news many of these schools that are the cusa leftovers and the fcs callups to cusa and the sunbelt...these schools like JMU and the other FCS callups will be FBS now and need out of conference home games. I think going forward...we could try and get home and homes with JMU and ODU...and we should work on Home and Homes with UCONN...and I still think we could buy ourselves at least 1 P5 home game and play at least 1 P5 away game each year. I know scheduling it may get harder...but instead of throwing the 24 million at cusa we use thar money to beef up our schedules. We could basically market ourselves as G5+. Most G5s only play 1 P5 game. If we can play 2 or 3 each year even if two are away...it gives us a recruiting edge. 3 P5 games with some fill in cusa and independent leftovers still look better than a strong G5 conference schedule...and we will have even more options for home games. In the meantime it gives us time for the board to find a legitimate president for the school. And we wouldnt be compromising our convictions...we'd be finding someone qualified for the permanent position over the interim that we have now. Dominoes will still keep falling and we will keep on working at improving ourselves. It is what it is. Sometimes closed doors end up being a blessing in the end.

[olldflame]

Looks like C-USA may be in deep trouble.

[rmiller1959]

Looks like C-USA may be in deep trouble.

That's the ball game. C-USA is done unless they go out and grab a bunch of FCS schools to fill out their slate, and we stay put for now. Maybe once things stabilize a bit on the academic and administrative side, other opportunities will arise. Hope springs eternal, no?

[LUaddict]

The only reason I was Pro conference is because of the possible path a 12 team playoff based on a conference championship. The article says we are no longer interested in CUSA, so maybe we did have a choice. it just was that the SBC and JMU and CO. didn't want to be associated with us. Who knows Sly, I'm optimistic for the future as long we keep winning.

[TallyW]

"Liberty no longer interested in C-USA,"

That's good news if true.

[TH Spangler]

ESPN will have a deal with all the G5's. Not having one with C USA told me its being eliminated. I guess I'm glad we've got our 5 year ESPN deal.

Things are changing quickly these days. I just saw an article that said Disney is once again thinking about getting rid of ESPN. Said ESPN viewership is dependent on cable packages, where as Disney is more like Netflix, not depended on being part of a cable package. Packages are declining, ESPN business model is a drag on Disney going forward.

Maybe it's best to stay Indy and see where all this goes. ND is still Indy

[tyndal23]

Not sure why anyone is surprised that The same G5 Conferences who didn’t want us before don’t want us now, only thing that has changed since then is we actually got better than they feared our $ would make us - much faster and we had a little scandal with our Prez. Only conference that would ideologically accept us is Big 12. Once again, make them a $ offer they can’t refuse. They are going to go to 16 teams and have quad scheduling - we fit with Cinci,WVU. Paying a team for 4 years like Boise vs getting paid same amount by LU is a big swing and will get presidents votes. ( using $25 million a year - that is a net of $200 million over 4 years to Conference ). You can argue all day about on the field merit - but this is way more about $ and future - LU can Implement an athletic budget as large as anyone in Big 12 ( that would be part of my pitch also ).

[Humble_Opinion]

This is LU vs the SBC using Athletics data submitted to the EADA database. Mind you, this was for the 2018-19 submission, when Coach Gill was still at the helm. Freeze and his staffs salaries are reportedly much higher than Gill’s. This comparison right here is part of the reason the SBC doesn’t want us. We scare them.

[Humble_Opinion]

For those interested… here’s a comparison of LU vs AAC from the same year (2018-19). As you can see we are already comparable to many of these schools. Given the additional facilities we have opened, and the changes in Football coaching staff, I’d be willing to be we probably are higher than the league average.

[tyndal23]

Presentation over and above the cash would be announcing athletic budget in the top 1/3 of Big 12 teams, immediate stadium expansion to 40k with an allotment of 15k visitor seats for first x amount of years, Vines Center for In Quad Conference Games ( if required ) - and I am sure others could add a long list of additional incentive items. Big 12 just took a 40% haircut - and added BYU ( ideological argument out the window ) otherwise this would sound laughable, but $200 million swing and realization we have national, appeal vs local - I think it would have to be considered seriously by Big 12. Especially when discussing SMU ( the other TX schools do not want them and they have a smaller fan base than LU ) SDSU, Boise St ( solid but only in football ) CSU. Memphis isn’t as much of a lock as some think...but those are the schools we would be comparing to, not that big of a stretch.

[ATrain]

The next question is: What do UTEP, MTSU, WKU, FIU, and LA Tech do??? The only other FCS team that could move up to compete is North Dakota State. Do they invite New Mexico state for football only? Offer the same football only deals to UMass and UConn?

[Liberty22]

The next question is: What do UTEP, MTSU, WKU, FIU, and LA Tech do??? The only other FCS team that could move up to compete is North Dakota State. Do they invite New Mexico state for football only? Offer the same football only deals to UMass and UConn?

Independent? Don’t know where they go Olympic sports wise.

[TH Spangler]

For those interested… here’s a comparison of LU vs AAC from the same year (2018-19). As you can see we are already comparable to many of these schools. Given the additional facilities we have opened, and the changes in Football coaching staff, I’d be willing to be we probably are higher than the league average.

Do you have this comparison for the big12?

[LUOrange]

Presentation over and above the cash would be announcing athletic budget in the top 1/3 of Big 12 teams, immediate stadium expansion to 40k with an allotment of 15k visitor seats for first x amount of years, Vines Center for In Quad Conference Games ( if required ) - and I am sure others could add a long list of additional incentive items. Big 12 just took a 40% haircut - and added BYU ( ideological argument out the window ) otherwise this would sound laughable, but $200 million swing and realization we have national, appeal vs local - I think it would have to be considered seriously by Big 12. Especially when discussing SMU ( the other TX schools do not want them and they have a smaller fan base than LU ) SDSU, Boise St ( solid but only in football ) CSU. Memphis isn’t as much of a lock as some think...but those are the schools we would be comparing to, not that big of a stretch.

The JMU AD gave an interview last night where he said that the B12 and AAC weren't done expanding. He also inferred that members of the proposed smaller, newer CUSA could very well leave for either of those conferences. So who knows? This proposal or something like it is worth it is worth a try.

[ALAFlamesFan]

We just need to keep getting better on the field and in the classroom. LU is still rising and eventually we will not be able to be ignored. Remember Notre Dame was first independent because the Big Ten didn't want a Catholic school. They didn't pout. They just went out and played anybody anywhere and now most conferences would love to have them.

I refuse to be concerned over what a bunch of irrelevant basically "directional schools" think. We need to just keep rising. We have a home for all our sports except football. I wouldn't mind playing a game or two less at home in football if it meant we were scheduling aggressively.

#Risewithus

[LUOrange]

The next question is: What do UTEP, MTSU, WKU, FIU, and LA Tech do??? The only other FCS team that could move up to compete is North Dakota State. Do they invite New Mexico state for football only? Offer the same football only deals to UMass and UConn?

Independent? Don’t know where they go Olympic sports wise.

It'll be interesting to see what if any relationship we forge with the 5 CUSA leftovers. I could see some kind of CUSA poaching or mergers with the ASUN and WAC. I do know that EKU, JAX State, and UCA all have FBS aspirations and that MO State and Youngstown had them at one time. It's also been reported many times and within the last week or 2 that NDSU does not.

[LU Grad 11]

"And through everything we've learned, we've finally come to terms. We are the outsiders." -Needtobreathe
Don't think we're going to fit in, regardless of how successful we become. No time for hand wringing or compromise. Time to embrace it, represent Christ, and obliterate our opponents! Let's go Flames!!!

[Humble_Opinion]

For those interested… here’s a comparison of LU vs AAC from the same year (2018-19). As you can see we are already comparable to many of these schools. Given the additional facilities we have opened, and the changes in Football coaching staff, I’d be willing to be we probably are higher than the league average.

Do you have this comparison for the big12?

I don’t have it, but I can put it together pretty quickly.