Another edition of the ASOR Mailbag! 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 and simply could not get to them all. We will try to answer the rest of them in a future mailbag. Anyway, let’s get right to it.

We also had a similar question from Instagram, ‘Did McKay realize after this season that we need more size?’

I get it, it’s funny to joke about Liberty’s height or lack thereof, especially over these last two seasons. But, following the team’s first season in CUSA, head coach Ritchie McKay said publicly multiple times that the team had to get bigger. Over the last two offseasons, including the three incoming freshmen for this upcoming year’s team, here are the heights of the 17 players the Flames have brought in:

  • 6’3″ (Brett Decker)
  • 6’4″
  • 6’4″
  • 6’5″
  • 6’5″
  • 6’6″
  • 6’6″
  • 6’6″
  • 6’7″
  • 6’8″
  • 6’8″
  • 6’8″
  • 6’8″
  • 6’8″
  • 6’9″
  • 6’9″
  • 6’9″

It’s clear McKay is planning for and preparing to have a team that is no longer one of the smallest in the country. Some things affected that this past season, most notably the injuries to Isaiah Ihnen and Josh Smith (early in the season) and the development of RJ Jones as well as the other freshmen. To answer the original question, I don’t know yet as there are at least 5 spots remaining on next year’s roster and most of the ones brought in will be expected to play immediately, but I don’t expect we will be one of the smallest teams in the country.

Obviously, I hope we can keep Brett Decker, but it will be difficult. First team all-conference player, leading the regular season champions in scoring, and shooting nearly 50% from three on the season, he would have a long list of suitors for his services if he entered the portal and he could likely command a 7-figure NIL/revenue sharing deal. With that being said, what Coach McKay has built at Liberty is special and we have seen others stay and take less money because they valued what Liberty offered. He just signed with an agency, so that certainly has an impact on his future. You don’t sign with an agency to take a discount and stay. It’s certainly more likely he leaves, but we will see.

As for Noah Cleveland, the younger brother of Zach who is in the portal after an All-American first season at the D3 ranks, I have no information that Liberty is pursuing him. Certainly that could change and I think if the Flames went after him, we would have a very good chance of landing Noah. Obviously, if the coaching staff thinks he could provide something for the team, he will be someone they pursue. But for now, I’d say it’s unlikely he is in a Liberty uniform next season.

With so many knee injuries, Ihnen is expected to hang them up. I also have not heard anything about trying to get Harper or Smith another year of eligibility, so I wouldn’t expect it. The last question is an interesting one and could be answered several ways. Not exactly sure what you mean by spend more. In what area? In my opinion, there are some areas we overspend and some areas we should spend more. It seems to me the most obvious way to get Liberty to spend more on athletics is by helping to increase their budget by joining the Flames Club, increasing the level of your Flames Club membership, buying season tickets, donating to individual team excellence funds, etc. Liberty lags behind many of its peers in these categories, and in some of them by significant numbers.

The way the roster is currently constructed, without any departures, there are five open roster spots for next year’s team.

This is in reference to Louisiana Tech’s standing in Conference USA as the Bulldogs are moving to the Sun Belt and want to begin play in that league this coming athletic season. Both CUSA and the Sun Belt have released football schedules with LA Tech on them. I have heard that Conference USA already has a schedule prepared if Louisiana Tech doesn’t play in the league next season. For Liberty, it likely means replacing the Bulldogs on the schedule with one of the two CUSA teams the Flames aren’t currently scheduled to play – Jax State or Missouri State.

Fair question. We did have a very strong history of quarterbacks dating back to the FCS days. From Mike Brown to Josh Woodrum to Buckshot Calvert to Malik Willis and then Kaidon Salter. That was nearly two decades of very successful quarterbacks. Obviously, the 2025 season was a step down from that level of production. Coach Chadwell knows that so he went out and got a pair of quarterbacks in the portal that should be able to compete for the starting job. Both Deshawn Purdie and Jaylen Henderson have P4 experience and backgrounds not too far off from that of Willis and Salter. I think it’s too early to say there’s not a go to QB on the roster this year. Let’s wait and see how the spring and summer play out. Remember, Malik wasn’t the clear cut starter until he actually took the field and played in that first game at Western Kentucky.

Wouldn’t we all love to know that information. Unfortunately, it is not public information. We don’t know the full NIL budgets for any Division I school. Any number that you see reported, you must be highly skeptical of it because there are no reporting requirements and whoever is leaking that information likely has an agenda and could exaggerate that number one way or the other to serve that agenda. As for what we do know, Liberty’s athletic budget competes with the highest in the Group of Five. Look at coaches salaries, facilities, and any number of ways this can show up. From what I’ve heard, Liberty’s goal is to be at or near the top of CUSA and the entire G5 in NIL and revenue sharing, but it’s also difficult to know exactly what the competition is spending. For football, I have good reason to believe Liberty is right at or near the top of the rest of the league. For men’s basketball, I have heard from reliable sources that the Flames are not quite at the top but closer to 4th or 5th in the league in NIL/rev share. I would say that’s probably the baseline for where it truly is and could potentially be the highest. I don’t have any sourced data for women’s basketball, but I would also imagine it is in that same ballpark. Hopefully one day this information is required to be reported.

From Instagram, one of our followers asked, ‘Can we get an assessment of what has happened to softball? Did something change?

Last year was quite the outlier for what Liberty softball has typically been. Yes, the Lady Flames have been knocking on the door of making the Super Regionals by advancing to multiple Regional Finals, but last year’s team also got out to a really good start to the season by going 8-0, including a win over Alabama. Most of the time under Coach Dot Richardson, Liberty has played a very tough schedule early on but had rough looking records to begin the season. This year has resorted back to the mean in that department. The team seems to have a lot of power and capable hitters. The ceiling for this team will be decided by the pitching. If Liberty can be consistent in the circle, this team should once again be capable of winning CUSA and getting back to regionals.

No.