It appears the realignment chairs have all but settled into place. It’s been a topsy-turvy few months since the news of Texas and Oklahoma leaving the Big 12 for the SEC broke in late July. The Big 12 filled with three AAC members and the Independent BYU, followed by the AAC and Sun Belt raiding the Conference USA as well as calling up James Madison from the FCS. The news of the Sun Belt adding Old Dominion, Marshall, and JMU is not official, but all signs point towards that end.

CUSA is in dire straits right now after losing 9 members in the course of a week. The league who just a few years ago was hoping to prove itself as one of the stronger Group of Five conferences is now on the verge of extinction. Once Marshall and Old Dominion decided to move to the Sun Belt, Liberty had no desire to join a league consisting of UTEP, Louisiana Tech, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, and FIU. No offense to those schools, if they were all located within five hours of Lynchburg, it would maybe make it attractive, but not with the entire league a plane ride away from Virginia.

The Sun Belt now has a very attractive eastern half of their conference featuring Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Old Dominion, Marshall, James Madison, Georgia Southern, and Georgia State. If they were to offer Liberty a spot tomorrow, the Flames would accept it in a heartbeat.

But that invitation isn’t coming.

On paper, Liberty has the profile with the facilities and resources that belong in the AAC, but the school has just too much baggage to overcome for these conferences to jump on board and be willing to associate with Liberty.

From a national perception among the media, conference officials, and school administrators, Liberty is just too toxic and the Flames’ assets aren’t enough to overcome that. It’s not just the religious aspect of the school, look at BYU. Not enough time has passed since the Jerry Falwell, Jr. fiasco. There is no permanent president in place, the current “interim” president was on the Board of Trustees when Falwell was in charge with no public message on the direction of the school moving forward.

Many have mentioned Liberty joining the Big East or Atlantic 10 in all sports except for football and remaining Independent. Either one of those conferences would be a slam dunk for Liberty, but there is no reason to believe those leagues want anything to do with Liberty at this point in time for the same reasons mentioned above.

No attractive conference wants Liberty right now. That is a fact. We need to realize and accept that reality.

This is nothing new for Liberty University. Liberty has been counted out and fighting an uphill battle since its founding in 1971. Whether it has been in regards to conference alignment or simply keeping the doors of the school open.

For now, Liberty can only continue to do what it has been doing for the past few seasons. Keep winning. Keep moving forward. Keep improving. Keep investing into the programs. Keep your head down and continue the work that has already been started. Win. Do it with class. Keep growing. Keep building.

That’s all we can do at this point. We don’t know when there will be another opportunity for Liberty to join a conference it belongs in. It might be just around the corner in the next year or two or it could be in another decade. We can’t worry about that right now. Just win.