Its been a few months since my last writing but a LOT has happened for the Liberty football team. First, the Flames won 4 of their final six games, but finished with back to back losses to Charleston Southern and newly FBS (more on that in a second) Coastal Carolina 42-7 to miss the FCS playoffs.
Fast forward to February of 2017 and word came down that the NCAA had approved Liberty's waiver to reclassify as an FBS Independent and they immediately began the process of transitioning to the highest level of Division I football.
After a very active spring football practice, the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced the Flames 2018 schedule (or at least some of the teams that will be on that schedule) during his address to the graduating class of 2017 at Liberty's 44th Commencement Exercises. The official schedule was announced on LibertyFlames.com
September 1- Old Dominion
September 8- @Army West Point
September 15- Norfolk State
September 22- North Texas
September 29- @New Mexico
October 6- @New Mexico State
October 13- Troy
October 20- Idaho State
October 27- BYE
November 3- @UMass
November 10- @Virginia
November 17- @Auburn
November 24- New Mexico State
Much of this schedule came together in the last few months thanks to the work of new Liberty Athletic Director Ian McCaw and Mickey Guridy as well as the work of the "College Football Matchmaker" Dave Brown (I'll refrain from making any Fiddler on the Roof references here). The game of greatest note in the current news cycle is the opener against Old Dominion, with the Flames reportedly paying the Monarchs $1.3M for the game thanks to a "seven figure guarantee from a Power 5 school" which also, according to a number of articles, including our friends at ASeaOfRed.com, opened up the ability to schedule 8 other games for 2018 and beyond.
This is a new season for Liberty football, but with that will come even higher expectations from not only the new administration, but Flames Nation as a whole, so we will see how the boys do in their transitional season and hopefully there will be some positive momentum heading into 2018
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