It was exactly one month ago, on February 16th, when Liberty got the notification its waiver to join the FBS as an Indepenent had been accepted. Since that time, we have had several features on the Flames move including our 3 part Q&A with Athletic Director Ian McCaw, Gill: “I knew it was going to happen, I just didn’t know when”, Flames’ path to FBS is a unique one, and Recruiting philosophy to change now that the Flames are FBS.
While we’ve touched on many subjects, there are still some quotes that we have accumulated over the past month that did not fit in any of our features, but we wanted to share with you. Here they are:
Coach Gill on if he plans on red-shirting Buckshot Calvert: “We’re not ready to make all those decisions at this point in time. I think anything is possible. I don’t think I’m going to get involved in all that until really after spring football. I’m not necessarily in a hurry to make all those kind of decisions at this point in time, but I think everything’s going to be on the table and we’ll pick the appropriate time to address that.”
USA Today’s Dan Wolken: “Clearly, when they changed athletic directors, they were making a statement about their intentions. That was fairly clear in my mind because it was a highly unusual move to remove Jeff Barber as A.D. I suspect they had all along the idea in mind they could hire someone like Ian McCaw, even if it wasn’t him specifically, it certainly might have been him specifically, that could work the process. My understanding was that it was not likely for them to go FBS without a conference invite. Obviously, that changed, and, perhaps, I think it’s fairly likely at this point, that Ian had the model for them that would allow them to structure a move going FBS Independent and it could work.”
Wolken on McCaw’s ability to put together an FBS schedule as an Independent: “He certainly has a lot of relationships within college football, within FBS. He’s been athletic director of a Power 5 school for however many years. So, he obviously has a huge circle of relationships that would certainly help. The part you don’t know about is how toxic he has become based upon the Baylor situation. I don’t know if people think of him differently now or not, but, ultimately, people are going to make football schedules to do what’s in the best interest of their programs, especially now that most of the leagues are going to 9 conference games. So, you’ve only got 3 opportunities to schedule non-league games. I’m sure he’ll be able to put together a schedule. I’m sure its not going to be easy. I’m sure it’s going to be quite difficult to get other FBS teams to go play there except for maybe UMass or New Mexico State or other people that are in a similar situation. I’m sure they’ve got a plan to make it work, and I’m sure Ian will try to leverage his relationships with people within the business to try to negotiate a schedule.”
Wolken on Liberty’s ability to receive a bowl invite if they get to 6 wins as an Independent: “That’s probably not their biggest concern right now, but if you win 6 games you’d like to go to a bowl. The last couple of years, because there’s been more and more bowl games, obviously one just shut down, but with so many bowl games every single year there’s a good probability that they won’t have enough bowl eligible teams to fill all those spots. A 6-6 Independent is not in the worst position imaginable. Whether or not, right out of the gate, they can get a bowl agreement, or maybe they set up a contingency agreement where its a MAC vs Conference USA bowl and those schools can’t fill it, maybe Liberty can get a deal for them to be sort of a backup plan. There’s always that kind of thing that goes on, but the truth is there’s been 5-7 teams that made bowl games the last 2 years and there’s no reason to think that won’t continue to be the case.”
