(06-08-2015 10:38 AM)The4thOption Wrote: I do believe that Liberty is going to make it to FBS one way or another.
When that happens, it will not matter if they are in our conference, another one or independent. The fears of those believing that they are going to steal coaching staffs etc, will happen or will not happen no matter where they are in FBS at the time.
Our coaches will be no more/less at risk by being in the same conference with them or not. I believe that if our staffs are that good, a P5 could already poach them and such staffs might be leery of going to Liberty instead of a P5.
I have no concern about what their degree is worth or how much it is or is not respected. That seriously has no effect on me or other conference member degrees. Nobody thinks more of a Kentucky degree because Vanderbilt is in their conference, or less of a Vanderbilt degree just because uga is in their conference ( ). We are talking ONLY about Athletics.
Can they bring a crowd to "Our House"?
Can they provide a game day home atmosphere that is worth traveling to?
Can they compete enough to not drag the conference's SOS down?
Can they win OOC against CUSA and other G5s?
Do they add a good market that could help our TV contract?
What available program doesn't have these question marks?
Vanderbilt is Vanderbilt. Liberty is Liberty. They are not the same. If Liberty had the same private school FBS motivations that Vandy does, my worries would be lessened. Vandy does not see football as their primary ticket to national respect...and never will.
Vandy's conference is also not our conference. Vandy's fellow conference members are blindingly rich.. we are poor. Vandy's private status has much less potential impact on a bunch of gold-plated state flagships in a premier conference.
The Vandy/Liberty comparisons are absurd. Just stop.
I had a rich roommate once. He had a great stereo and that was cool, but he also felt entitled to play Hells Bells at volume 10 at 7:00 every morning and thought he could rearrange the place whenever he wanted and tell me not to invite my friends over because he had more stuff.
Sometimes its better to live with people who have more in common with you.
I think you missed the point ark30
I'm not comparing the two, I'm not saying that they are anything a like. The could hardly be more different.
I'm saying that the Academic respect of one, no more rubs off on conference mates anymore than the potential lack their of, of the other would on its conference mates.
Neither Liberty's Academic nor Politics would be ascribed to other member's of their conference. Only their ability to compete on Athletic fields/courts is going to translate into any rankings or public opinions of our institutions. If they are good, our SOS and conference power rankings will rise. If not, it will sink.
This is my only concern with Liberty.
There have been a lot of people make the "Vandy is private and doesn't dominate the SEC" argument. If your comment on Vandy was to make a different point, my apologies.
(06-07-2015 08:24 PM)knucklehead Wrote: Problem with that logic is that Liberty was an on campus school quite a ways before it was an on line school. The difference is that Liberty does both well. Liberty was also one of the very first to do online and is way ahead of the curve. So many other on campus schools are now following suit.
The results of this poll make it clear that these issues rest with a scant few bitter folks. Most realize this is an athletics conversation and that Liberty would fit in quite well.
Who knew I was a bitter? That's good to know.
I disagree that Liberty would "fit in quite nicely." And, when I say that, it was nothing to do with Liberty's particular brand of Christianity. It has more to do with what others have said: private school, online degree factory, vastly different mission that the other SBC members, doesn't add a lot athletically other than its own money and facilities.
Again, thanks to all the approve voters. I stand by my statement that Liberty is the best SBC candidate and any other equal would have already been chosen. I am still positive LU will be FBS sooner than later, I'm just doubting that it will be with a seemingly shortsighted SBC.
(This post was last modified: 06-08-2015 12:49 PM by knucklehead.)
(06-08-2015 12:48 PM)knucklehead Wrote: Again, thanks to all the approve voters. I stand by my statement that Liberty is the best SBC candidate and any other equal would have already been chosen. I am still positive LU will be FBS sooner than later, I'm just doubting that it will be with a seemingly shortsighted SBC.
Curious... What facet do you believe is stopping Liberty from joining? I mean, I think everyone pretty much agrees that if you take the myopic ONLY athletics point of view, Liberty is the best candidate around.
So given that we agree it's not athletics/facilities (this is an assumption), what is it?
To keep from making it an argument, I will not respond to your answer (if you choose to).
(06-08-2015 12:48 PM)knucklehead Wrote: Again, thanks to all the approve voters. I stand by my statement that Liberty is the best SBC candidate and any other equal would have already been chosen. I am still positive LU will be FBS sooner than later, I'm just doubting that it will be with a seemingly shortsighted SBC.
Curious... What facet do you believe is stopping Liberty from joining? I mean, I think everyone pretty much agrees that if you take the myopic ONLY athletics point of view, Liberty is the best candidate around.
So given that we agree it's not athletics/facilities (this is an assumption), what is it?
To keep from making it an argument, I will not respond to your answer (if you choose to).
I think the biggest fear of conference presidents is they will be buying championships in 5 years......they will not say that publicly so may use other reasons to mask.
(This post was last modified: 06-08-2015 01:12 PM by WhitetailWizard.)
I'll take a stab at it. Presidents like to be with like minded people. So you have these progressive intellects sitting around a table and I'm sure the thought of inviting someone to their table that thinks and believes very different than they do is a hard pill to swallow. That's all speculation, what's not speculation is private vs. public. That's a major sticking point.
Not that I care all that much since they're not joining my league, I just think Liberty's stigma will deter a lot of players from wanting to go there. Other schools are definitely going to use student code of conduct at Liberty against them. If you're an 18 year old and have someone pitching you on a buffet of *****, that's attractive. At Liberty, you can't even be in the same dorm room after a certain time.
I just don't see them being able to recruit the kind of player necessary to be successful in a meaningful quantity. They haven't even been very good at the FCS level where they have superb facilities. I think they'd be a horrible flop in FBS.
People will inevitably point to Baylor and BYU, but they're not comparable. Baylor is in a major conference and I never even really knew they were all that religious until someone pointed it out recently. I don't think the stigma of being super conservative is attached to that school like it is Liberty.
BYU is just its own animal. They pretty much get all the best mormon players by default and they can offer a vastly superior slate of opponents, exposure, and support than Liberty.
(06-08-2015 12:48 PM)knucklehead Wrote: Again, thanks to all the approve voters. I stand by my statement that Liberty is the best SBC candidate and any other equal would have already been chosen. I am still positive LU will be FBS sooner than later, I'm just doubting that it will be with a seemingly shortsighted SBC.
Curious... What facet do you believe is stopping Liberty from joining? I mean, I think everyone pretty much agrees that if you take the myopic ONLY athletics point of view, Liberty is the best candidate around.
So given that we agree it's not athletics/facilities (this is an assumption), what is it?
To keep from making it an argument, I will not respond to your answer (if you choose to).
I think the biggest fear of conference presidents is they will be buying championships in 5 years......they will not say that publicly so may use other reasons to mask.
Any President who thinks like that should be fired. Again, they are a private school with a $29M budget. Not $129M.
(06-08-2015 12:48 PM)knucklehead Wrote: Again, thanks to all the approve voters. I stand by my statement that Liberty is the best SBC candidate and any other equal would have already been chosen. I am still positive LU will be FBS sooner than later, I'm just doubting that it will be with a seemingly shortsighted SBC.
Curious... What facet do you believe is stopping Liberty from joining? I mean, I think everyone pretty much agrees that if you take the myopic ONLY athletics point of view, Liberty is the best candidate around.
So given that we agree it's not athletics/facilities (this is an assumption), what is it?
To keep from making it an argument, I will not respond to your answer (if you choose to).
I think the biggest fear of conference presidents is they will be buying championships in 5 years......they will not say that publicly so may use other reasons to mask.
How many championships have they bought so far, in a weak conference.
(06-08-2015 12:48 PM)knucklehead Wrote: Again, thanks to all the approve voters. I stand by my statement that Liberty is the best SBC candidate and any other equal would have already been chosen. I am still positive LU will be FBS sooner than later, I'm just doubting that it will be with a seemingly shortsighted SBC.
Curious... What facet do you believe is stopping Liberty from joining? I mean, I think everyone pretty much agrees that if you take the myopic ONLY athletics point of view, Liberty is the best candidate around.
So given that we agree it's not athletics/facilities (this is an assumption), what is it?
To keep from making it an argument, I will not respond to your answer (if you choose to).
I think the biggest fear of conference presidents is they will be buying championships in 5 years......they will not say that publicly so may use other reasons to mask.
Any President who thinks like that should be fired. Again, they are a private school with a $29M budget. Not $129M.
They have no history that indicates that their budget is buying them easy trophies against lesser competition.
One thing to keep in mind. Facilities and headed to FBS is a recent development. When I was there in the 90's our stadium was a glorified high school stadium. The facilities were a joke. There wa no real emphasis put on sports. I would imagine in the next 5 years you'll see Liberty sports take a major step in the right direction. Out of the major sports I think every sport except for basketball is moving in the right direction. Hopefully basketball gets fixed quickly. We fired our coach and a roster shake up had already occurred. We'll see. With that said.. We're still not going to be a conference member in the SB, but I'll take every opportunity to educate people on Liberty.
Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App
(This post was last modified: 06-08-2015 01:39 PM by Libertygrad01.)
(06-07-2015 08:24 PM)knucklehead Wrote: Problem with that logic is that Liberty was an on campus school quite a ways before it was an on line school. The difference is that Liberty does both well. Liberty was also one of the very first to do online and is way ahead of the curve. So many other on campus schools are now following suit.
The results of this poll make it clear that these issues rest with a scant few bitter folks. Most realize this is an athletics conversation and that Liberty would fit in quite well.
Why doesn't NACUBO list your endowment along with other colleges and universities?
Maybe it's not in dollars but in frankincense and myrrh.
(06-08-2015 01:15 PM)Libertygrad01 Wrote: I'll take a stab at it. Presidents like to be with like minded people. So you have these progressive intellects sitting around a table and I'm sure the thought of inviting someone to their table that thinks and believes very different than they do is a hard pill to swallow. That's all speculation, what's not speculation is private vs. public. That's a major sticking point.
Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App
I'm not sure that 11 presidents at 11 state supported institutions in the south is exactly the League of Liberals.
There is a vast difference in mission of the institutions.
Liberty's admission page says to be considered for an academic scholarship a student must have a high school GPA of 2.7 and an ACT of 20. AState won't admit you without a 2.75 high school GPA and an ACT of 21, you can get conditional admission at lower levels but you are in a crack if you do because depending on your test scores you will have to complete three to 12 non-credit hours successfully to fully admitted and those don't count toward your degree progress for financial aid.
(06-08-2015 09:55 AM)JoeJag Wrote: Well, I guess you pro-Liberty folks just might be on to something, but I know that the SBC is only a stepping stone to bigger and better things for them. With all of that filthy lucre, maybe they could convince the NCAA to let them go FBS and become an independent and be partners with BYU, Notre Dame and Army.
So it is okay for USA to use the Sun Belt as a stepping stone but not Liberty? Your school was the one with ULL making the biggest effort to replace UAB in CUSA.