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+----- Thread: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? (/thread-833680.html)
Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - NoDak - 11-15-2017 07:35 PM
Today, it was announced that USC-Upstate will move to the Big South from the Atlantic Sun.
Felt for a while that the Atlantic Sun could be an FBS agglomeration conference.
E Kentucky and Jax St from the OVC could move there. Liberty as well. The key moves would be getting JMU and Delaware from the CAA and Stony Brook and Albany from the Atlantic East. All of those schools are FBS wannabes.
Kennesaw St has wanted FBS since they started fb. North Floriida and FGCU have studied it. Florida is just too important for recruiting to ignore. UMass may decide to move fb there.
The lesser schools in the ASun, like Lipscomb and NJIT would get opportunities opened up elsewhere. Stetson and Jacksonville may stay, as the conference profile would go way up.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - Have_a_Gansett_2011 - 11-15-2017 08:29 PM
(11-15-2017 07:35 PM)NoDak Wrote: Today, it was announced that USC-Upstate will move to the Big South from the Atlantic Sun.
Felt for a while that the Atlantic Sun could be an FBS agglomeration conference.
E Kentucky and Jax St from the OVC could move there. Liberty as well. The key moves would be getting JMU and Delaware from the CAA and Stony Brook and Albany from the Atlantic East. All of those schools are FBS wannabes.
Kennesaw St has wanted FBS since they started fb. North Floriida and FGCU have studied it. Florida is just too important for recruiting to ignore. UMass may decide to move fb there.
The lesser schools in the ASun, like Lipscomb and NJIT would get opportunities opened up elsewhere. Stetson and Jacksonville may stay, as the conference profile would go way up.
I seriously doubt it. Liberty moving out of BSC would need to be a step up, and ASun is really a step down, maybe a lateral move at best.
Conferences they'd consider - AAC, CAA, A10, Big East, P5. Outside that I don't see them moving out of BSC. Bridges have been burned in SBC and CUSA.
Also, N. Ala and Campbell are joining in football, with PC likely dropping football, and Liberty moving up in football.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - NoDak - 11-15-2017 09:09 PM
Losing Upstate is a step up for the ASun and a gaining it is a step down for the Big South. The Big South is a DII conference in disguise and Liberty must be itching to leave.
See the ASun making a major play for wanna be FCS schools, who can't afford to move to FBS without a group of like-minded friends.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - SumItUp - 11-15-2017 09:15 PM
It is very possible that Liberty would make a move to the ASUN, but it would not be with any intent to tie it to FBS football. Conference goals are set high at the FBS level and there are good options to make it work as an independent.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - LibertyOrangeman - 11-15-2017 09:50 PM
Liberty will be Independent in football and Big South for every thing else for a while, or at least until the next conference shake up possibly around 2024. We've dropped down to being an associate member, but I'm sure that's by design. As I'm sure Liberty going 1-A and the Big South adding Campbell and North Alabama in football around the same time frame were by design also. Of course that's speculation on my part.
I don't see Liberty leaving the Big South for the A-Sun. IMO that's definitely a step down, and the Big South outside of football, isn't a bad low-mid major. There's also rumor of the Big South adding another football school rather soon too, so it sounds like their ready for any fallout with the Blue Hose.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - SlyFox - 11-16-2017 02:34 AM
The Hampton move is very intriguing for the future of the league.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - army56mike - 11-17-2017 05:33 PM
I doubt Linerty leaves the BSC for the A Sun. It’s a conference where the competition is on the same level as the BSC, but the teams are much farther away. LU has history and proximity with BSC members. There will be no move until it’s to a higher profile conference..... AAC, C-USA, Big East or something.
Why are bridges burnt with C-USA?
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - SlyFox - 11-19-2017 01:07 AM
They weren't burned but definitely singed a bit by our revelations of them turning down our financial offer. Frankly I don't think it will make a difference by the time an opening pops up. I just hope we are on better football ground when we begin courting.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - army56mike - 11-19-2017 03:16 AM
If it weren’t for the dang loss of an auto bid, I say invite the whole A Sun to join the BSC.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - NoDak - 11-20-2017 06:34 AM
The Atlantic Sun has better research and has a public school profile that could go FBS with time. The Big South is mostly private schools. An FBS school like Liberty has no business aligning itself with such small schools. Simply don't have much in common anymore as LU has grown so large. It would be like if Baylor moved down to the Southland or Wake Forest moved to the Big South. The ASUN has a Florida-Georgia footprint that can deliver more recruits. Being in the Big South screams that Liberty is a small time school and recruits shy away because of it. There isn't much difference between the Big South and high level DII conference, and recruits see that.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - SlyFox - 11-20-2017 10:09 AM
It is not as simple as you indicate, NoDak. Through the Big South we have a compact bus league against schools with whom we know we should have relatively easy access to auto bids regardless of sports outside of mens hoops. And even that looks better these days. The upside to being in the A-Sun is negligable for us.
Now there remains the very real possibility that we'll land there as our fallback should the Big South push us out to make way for more schools. But in the meantime, it serves our purposes just fine.
As for recruiting, we strongly recruit Texas, Georgia & Florida already. Having a game at a school that most recruits really don't follow in their state gives us minimal advantage.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - army56mike - 11-20-2017 05:18 PM
The upside, if one exists at all, for going to the A Sun, is minimal compared to the BSC. We are currently better off staying put until a much better offer comes. We need a string of conference championships and NCAA Tourny runs for better conferences to take notice.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - NoDak - 11-20-2017 10:10 PM
(11-20-2017 05:18 PM)army56mike Wrote: The upside, if one exists at all, for going to the A Sun, is minimal compared to the BSC. We are currently better off staying put until a much better offer comes. We need a string of conference championships and NCAA Tourny runs for better conferences to take notice.
Thats a reasonable response. But if JMU, Delaware, Jax St, EKU, Stony Brook and others go A Sun, Liberty won't be far behind.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - SlyFox - 11-20-2017 11:22 PM
That is an epically significant IF.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - GE and MTS - 11-21-2017 09:40 PM
(11-20-2017 10:10 PM)NoDak Wrote:(11-20-2017 05:18 PM)army56mike Wrote: The upside, if one exists at all, for going to the A Sun, is minimal compared to the BSC. We are currently better off staying put until a much better offer comes. We need a string of conference championships and NCAA Tourny runs for better conferences to take notice.
Thats a reasonable response. But if JMU, Delaware, Jax St, EKU, Stony Brook and others go A Sun, Liberty won't be far behind.
Why would those schools move to the A-Sun in the first place? The A-Sun is literally the gateway from Division II, the eastern version of the WAC. They are the lowest of lows in D-I. Why would the current A-Sun members let a bunch of schools come in and hijack the conference? Why would schools not currently in conferences together then band together under a new conference? Why would the NCAA allow them to move to FBS without an invitation from an existing FBS conference? Liberty received a waiver due to asking the NCAA for permission to move up as an independent since the rule was inadvertently punishing private schools. The example lists all public.
RE: Does Liberty plan on moving to the Atlantic Sun? - SlyFox - 11-22-2017 10:26 AM
The inferrence is to the possibility of FBS wannabes banding together to move up together and still maintain auto bids. Under the current environment, it is one of the few plausable paths to a new Eastern FBS league. Once again, this is highly speculative and frankly rather unlikely. But circumstances could change in the next year or so to make such a move more realistic.
There cannot be a football-only FBS league. So any new FBS league would either have to be created through an existing non-football league like the A-Sun or WAC adding FBS football or through building a new league from the ground up which would result in the loss of auto bids for all sports for way too many years for most schools considering a move to stomach.