BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

Word was the Louisiana schools were not eager to add someone with Liberty's resources, not to mention the ideological stuff that LU always has to deal with. Benson wanted Liberty badly. The presidents would not budge. They're going to be waiting forever for JMU, which is eying CUSA, not the Sun Belt.

 

I also heard the western Sun Belt schools, particularly Arkansas State, were hoping for Missouri State as the 12th. Also that Ark. St. and ULL harbor their own CUSA dreams. But short of the Big 12 taking two from the Cincy/Uconn/UCF/USF pool, I can't imagine the dominoes falling to allow for any substantive realignment for a while, certainly not enough to get JMU in CUSA.

Could Liberty sue its way into FBS? I have no idea what the legal basis would be (restraint of trade?) but it appears they meet every requirement for membership except for the one they can't control -- an invitation to an FBS conference. And the NCAA did allow BYU to go independent despite already having a conference home, so they're not completely opposed to having schools to go that route. I understand that the conference requirement is probably tied into viability as a young FBS program, but attendance history and facilites would seem to point to Liberty already being more viable than a couple of the FBS stragglers.

In a less litigious vein, could Liberty reasonably petition the NCAA for a waiver to the conference invitation rule, citing unique circumstances that make getting a conference invitation an insurmountable hurdle?

 

Lots of fans on the Liberty message board are asking that very question ... Liberty actually has much more in common -- at least program amenities-wise -- with the CUSA schools than it does the Sun Belt schools. It would be an odd fit in the Sun Belt in a lot of ways: geographically, philosophically, athletics budget, etc.

Someone also brought up the point that no private school has made the move from FCS to FBS in decades. So there's that hurdle. Liberty has enough problems filling a home schedule as an FCS team. They're playing two DIIs this year because they can't get enough FCS teams to come to town. I don't know how they'd fill an FBS indy schedule.

 

They could fill an FBS indy schedule no problem as long as they were willing to play at least nine road games.

 

I think there's a requirement that an FBS team must play at least five home games, with four against fellow FBS teams. Can't remember if that's exactly right, but it's something like that. Was the big issue Idaho and New Mexico State were running into when they were going to be independent.

 

Didn't ETSU just hire former Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer as either football coach and/or athletic director?

 

They'd have one advantage over Idaho and NMSU in that there's enough nearby lower FBS schools with whom they could enter into home-and-homes. Their problem would be how to handle the back end of the schedule when everyone else is in conference play, but even then there's ways to fill the sked. ODU did a decent enough job filling their weird-ass hybrid FBS/FCS indy schedule, though they're happy as hell they don't have to do that but the one time.

If all the major FBS conferences follow the Big Ten's lead and scuttle games against FCS teams going forward, that helps Liberty because there's more opportunities to be a rent-a-victim. They'd be in the right place to be some SEC team's late-season punching bag.

 

Fulmer is working as a consultant and special assistant to the AD at ETSU.

 

God, what a concept. Schools fighting each other to get into Conference USA. Is this a great country or what?

 

One way to deal with conference expansion and related scheduling issues: UNC and Wake now have a non-conference matchup on the schedule for 2019 and 2021.

Carolina And Wake Forest Schedule Non-Conference Series - University of North Carolina Tar Heels Official Athletic Site

 

I don't like it. Just doesn't seem right. But that's the result of having large conferences.

 

I remember Colorado and California had one of those the first year of the Pac-12 expansion, but that was an oddity. They'd scheduled the game previously and played the first half of the home-and-home the year before.
Doing it intentionally just isn't right. There's no Sun Belt or C-USA team with an open date they could schedule?

Actually, after reading that, it makes some sort of sense. UNC and Wake are in opposite divisions and it rekindles a rivalry that has waned. It's odd, and not my cup of tea, but at least there's a logic to it.