Damian had an article on the WF cancellation along with some Ian quotes. Ian boiled it down to finances and competition. P5s do not want to play at G5 venues, as they make way more hosting. Secondly, P5s don’t want to play strong competition, referencing the recent upsets that have been occurring. He also stated that its these P5s reaching out the Liberty to cancel, not the other way around.
We’ll see if that holds, but it wouldn’t surprise me if WF adds APP in our place (saw twitter rumors on this), which contradicts both points to a degree. The competition aspect makes sense, with Liberty on the rise, but the financial part doesn’t entirely. 2 for 1s are stacked in their favor. And, why were these all scheduled in the first place if that was their concern? I think the rise in Liberty’s public toxicity may be more of a culprit than we want to admit. Take the recent UMASS tweet…
They can do what they want, and I don’t think this will bother LU fans as much as they think. Every day is pride day in our culture at large. My main takeaway is that this is not coming from some UMASS student social club or diversity department, but straight out of the athletic department (one of their assistant ADs said it was a long time in the making). I know politically Massachusetts is about as different than Lynchburg as you can get, but I also viewed the two schools in a bit of underdog alliance, so I take this as an obvious sign they would cancel culture Liberty if they could (there is no separation of sex and sports with the UMAS athletic department). I recognize a lot of this is self inflicted on our part, either way.
I have no reason to think UVA, UNC, WF, and DUKE are not doing it, largely, for the same reason. What's the evidence? Every single one of them has reached out to us to cancel, and it can't be a coincidence, and the stated reasons don't entirely make sense. Add in the fact that these are the best regional P5s we could play, where we won't be completely dominated, and we quickly are out of options. Do we really think Syracuse will give us another 2 for 1? Never. What options are left?
All that to say, the move to CUSA may have been more of a life raft than we think. I’m also viewing the move to CUSA and lack of P5s as a bit of a reset button on our move to FBS. Not in the sense that the sky is falling, but the independent path has proven it was not sustainable long term. It served its purpose though, getting our foot in the door and into a conference, along with four years to build our FBS infrastructure, staff, and roster. Going back to 2018, if you were told we could join CUSA but it would result in no P5 games until all the dust settles for four years, we’d all take it. I think 2023 is that point, we just have a huge head start.