On a slow day with nothing to do, I did some research for what it would take for Liberty to be invited into a P5 conference as they are currently composed. The first category I looked at was attendance because that is a solid indicator of a program and is easily available. I used the 2016 figures available at the NCAA website: http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_r...e/2016.pdf

For the numbers, I included Notre Dame as an independent, Coastal Carolina is transitioning and not included in the Sun Belt figures but New Mexico State and Idaho are included there. Note, the NCAA website's average for each conference takes into account the average per game attendance while my numbers is the average per game per school. For example, the SEC average of 77,507 in 2016 per the NCAA is calculated by taking the 97 SEC home games and averaging out the over 7.5 million in attendance. My figures take the average of each school's average so that it is more of an apples to apples comparison for those who had different amounts of home games.

Average and Median Attendance:
1. SEC - 77,165; 81,929
2. Big Ten - 65,574; 57,650
3. Big 12 - 57,569; 53,185
4. PAC 12 - 50,366; 47,182
5. ACC - 49,716; 48,876

6. American - 31,549
7. Mountain West - 24,296
8. Conference USA - 19,786
9. Sun Belt - 17,823
10. MAC - 15,877

Independents - 46,632

Liberty was 9th in FCS at 16,377 which would have only improved the MAC with all things being equal.

But it isn't enough to just look at the average. Ideally, a new school should be near the top of the league as they want to make a strong impression to be invited and that is important for a school like Liberty that has some obstacles to overcome. Here are the schools at or around the top third or top quarter of each conference:

Top 33% and Top 25% in the Conference:
SEC - Georgia 92,746; LSU 101,231
Big Ten - Wisconsin 79,357; Penn State 100,257
Big 12 - Texas Tech 58,250; Oklahoma 86,857
PAC 12 - Oregon 54,677; Washington 64,589
ACC - NC State 57,497; Virginia Tech 63,043

American - Cincinnati 33,585; Memphis 37,346
Mountain West - Colorado State 27,600; Air Force 29,587
Conference USA - Rice 21,425; UTSA 23,038
Sun Belt - Troy 22,534; Arkansas State 22,700
MAC - Eastern Michigan 17,677; Toledo 20,628

Independents - BYU 58,569; Notre Dame 80,795

Here is the top of each conference for a best case scenario:
1. Big Ten - Michigan 110,468
2. SEC - Texas A&M 101,917
3. Big 12 - Texas 97,881
4. ACC - Clemson 80,970
5. PAC 12 - Southern California 68,459

6. American - ECU 44,113
7. Mountain West - San Diego State 37,289
8. Conference USA - Southern Miss 28,588
9. Sun Belt - App State 26,153
10. MAC - Western Michigan 23,838

Independents - Notre Dame 80,795

Getting our attendance up to 20,000 shouldn't be hard. Getting over 25,000 and forcing an expansion by 2023 should be a target. That's about the time when realignment could happen with so many grant of rights/television contracts start expiring and are renegotiated. To give us a shot at a P5 conference, an average of 60,000 looks like the minimum target.