Thank you for submitting your questions and continue to send them in and we will be happy to answer them in our next feature. You can send them to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, e-mail, or as a comment on the site. We had a ton of great questions this week, so let’s get right to it.

Southern Miss, Old Dominion, and Marshall have all announced their intentions to leave Conference USA and join the Sun Belt for the 2022-23 athletic year. It would make sense to wonder if this would help push Liberty’s timeline of joining the conference for the 2023-24 year up to this coming fall. I don’t think that will be the case though for several reasons. First, even with those three schools leaving, CUSA would still have 11 members for the 2022-23 year provided the schools that are leaving CUSA for the American Athletic Conference don’t push their timeline up (which there has been no discussion of that to this point). Also, Liberty has informed the ASUN of its timeline for leaving the league, and the ASUN has been very accommodating to LU. Liberty doesn’t want to sour that relationship on the way out any more than it has to. Another reason Liberty would want to stick to the original timeline of joining CUSA is because of the 2022 football schedule. LU already has to make a ton of changes to future schedules beginning with 2023. AD Ian McCaw and his staff don’t want that to happen to 2022, especially with home dates against Virginia Tech and BYU. Also, waiting until 2023-24 gives all Liberty sports another year of recruiting to help elevate the programs to compete at the top of the CUSA.

Most of the 2023 football schedule we will be waiting on Conference USA to release its conference schedule. Based on previous years, that will likely occur in January or February of 2023. There is a possibility that Liberty releases its non-conference schedule for 2023 prior to that. We will also likely find out about several changes to the schedule, as we already have, over the next several months.

I could definitely see Demario getting drafted, but he’s technically only a redshirt-sophomore in football eligibility for the 2022 season. So, to say he will be the next player drafted is probably unlikely. Out of the group of seniors for the 2022 season, there are a few who have a chance to get an NFL look depending on how their senior campaign goes. The most likely is Durrell Johnson. He was getting some preseason NFL Draft buzz entering 2021, but he fought through some injuries during the season. If QB Charlie Brewer comes in and completely dominates, someone could take a flier on the quarterback. The same can be said of running back TJ Green or wide receiver Caleb Snead. OL Cooper McCaw could also get a look next year. Javon Scruggs is probably a little undersized and not fast enough to get drafted by the NFL, but I do expect him to get a camp invite, at the least. Two other underclassmen to keep an eye on in addition to Demario are CJ Yarbrough and TreShaun Clark.

We broke down the top four candidates to replace Malik Willis as Liberty’s QB1 in a recent article. Johnathan Bennett would be the early betting favorite as he is the only one in the room with any significant playing time at Liberty under head coach Hugh Freeze, but I think Charlie Brewer will end up the starter to begin the season. The former Baylor, Utah quarterback is expecting to come in and win the job, and Coach Freeze wouldn’t have brought him in if he didn’t think he could push Bennett and the others for the job. Kaidon Salter also brings a completely different dynamic to the room with his athletic ability, and if he proves this spring that he has a full understanding of the offense he is the darkhorse. Nate Hampton also has the ability to win the job, as well, as he has the skill set it takes. At the end of the day, Freeze has a good problem – four good quarterback candidates. Also, keep this in mind, whoever is named QB1 for week one against Southern Miss hasn’t been named the starter for the entire season. If whoever wins the job in practice doesn’t earn the job on the field in the fall, Freeze will make a change.

As for your men’s basketball question about big men, the game has changed. First of all, there just aren’t that many big men around college basketball, even at the high major level and that’s certainly the case in the ASUN. It’s not just a Liberty problem. The Flames haven’t had a true “big man” in a while. Even Scottie James and Myo Baxter-Bell weren’t your prototypical big man. Scottie was more of a traditional four while Myo was undersized to play in the post. Blake Preston is probably your best example of a traditional big man on the current Liberty roster at 6’9″ with interior skills. As the game continues to evolve, look at the makeup of next year’s roster – there are seven of 13 scholarship players that will be listed as a forward and is 6’7″ or taller.

I don’t know why there isn’t a large selection of Liberty merchandise available. I do know that ASOR has heard the many complaints regarding this issue and we are working to help. We have launched an ASOR Store and will be updating it frequently with new merchandise. We are building slow, so it will take some time to build up, but if you have specific requests be sure to let us know what type of merchandise you are looking for.

Never say never. Things change all the time. Who would have thought that Jackson State would be getting blue chip prospects over household names because of NIL deals? To get that level of recruit to choose your school over a Power Five school that would only choose Liberty because of the NIL deal, it would take some big time bucks.