The people associated with Liberty University are no strangers to sitting on the sideline and watching the action unfold.
Evangelist turned former school president Jerry Falwell Jr. notably took an onlooker approach to his marital love life. From his office in Lynchburg, Virginia, Flames head coach (now ex-head coach) Hugh Freeze begrudgingly watched as Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin took charge of the program he helped revitalize. And for years, the Liberty football program saw major college football pass it by, as it languished in the in-between as a fledgling Divison I Independent before joining Conference USA last year.
But as we approach the 2024 college football season, Liberty has its sights set on something even the best clairvoyants couldn't have envisioned: an invite to the college football mainstage.
Starting this year, the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams, creating a more expansive game of musical chairs for college football contenders. More spots equal more opportunities. And while a national title is still only realistic for the programs that meet the requirements for Bud Elliott's Blue-Chip Ratio, expansion extends an invite to more party-goers, even if the party isn't for them.
Let's explore why Liberty is uniquely positioned to enter the College Football Playoff in 2024 and why I suspect they'll be the prominent Group of 5 representative for years to come.
Splash the Cash
In 1994, the Wu-Tang Clan blessed the world with the hit single C.R.E.AM. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me), and if LU weren't staunchly Republican and very, very white, I just might think this song was the Method (Man) for their Division I football ascension.
In 1988, Liberty officially joined the Division I-AA ranks in the Big South Conference. It remained in the league for 27 years and had strong football success, exiting with eight conference titles and an impressive four-in-four stretch from 2007-2010.
Soon after, the program took a step up, exiting the Big South in favor of Division I independence. Head coach Turner Gill ushered the Flames into their first season as an independent before retiring at the end of the 2018 season. Then the Flames started cooking with gas and got ambitious with their coaching ambitions.
Fresh off an embarrassing and frankly, gross, departure from Ole Miss, Hugh Freeze was waiting on a white knight (get it? white knight!) to give him a second chance. In steps shameless Liberty, ready to fast-track their football program by any means necessary. The Freeze hire earmarked the 'splash the cash' era in Lynchburg.
Freeze went on to dominate the Conference USA and left the school with a 34-15 record, but not before he could step in it once again. Instead of texting with a sex worker among other things (like he did at Ole Miss), this time Freeze sent unsolicited DMs to an alleged sexual assault survivor and Title IX plaintiff.
To build on Freeze's success, Liberty once again got ambitious with their head coach pursuits, this time landing on Coastal Carolina sensation Jamey Chadwell. Chadwell spurned interest from several top Divison-I and SEC schools to go to Liberty, of all places. He signed a seven-year, four-million-per-year contract, further signifying Liberty's ambitions.
The next step in the Splash the Cash era came with a significant investment in the Flames' Name Image and Likeness budget. NIL, if nothing else, has been a great vehicle for the players finally getting compensated and for the rest of us to quickly identify the haves and have-nots.
NIL forces schools to ask questions like: How bad do we want to be good? How deep are our alumni base's pockets? If we don't have money now, how do we get money in the future?
Liberty has signified the program wants to win and it wants to win now. The Flames ponied up in a big way just this offseason, managing to retain highly sought-after quarterback Kaidon Salter.
Behind a significant donor base and private school backing, Liberty does not appear to be going away anytime soon.
Conference Dominance
I'm not entirely convinced that Liberty joining the Conference USA was part of some grand scheme, as much as it was just the conference that would accept the Flames.
That said, man, in hindsight, this has been an incredible situation for Liberty.
Due in large part to the aforementioned financial commitment and savvy coaching hires, Liberty has now positioned itself to be the biggest and richest fish in a fairly small pond. Last season, the Flames steamrolled the conference en route to a 12-0 regular season and topped New Mexico State in the Conference USA title game. I don't foresee this dominance slowing down anytime soon.
I suspect the Flames will reach a similar level of success in 2024. Of its 12 regular season games, my eyes are immediately drawn to two high-profile road games in September. Let's keep an eye on how it fares on the road against NMSU on September 7 and against Appalachian State on September 28. If Liberty gets through September unscathed, undefeated feels very likely.
I referenced Bud Elliott's Blue-Chip Ratio earlier, but that's not the only Bud-ism I'll leave you with today. In talking about Liberty last season and this off-season on the Cover 3 Podcast, Elliott predicted a potential peak Bobby Bowden, 1990s ACC level of dominance coming to Lynchburg. From 1992-2000, Florida State lost more than one conference game just three times and topped the conference every year.
Is it unbelievable that Liberty could do the same? I think not.
As long as Liberty is willing to pay a premium for good coaches and has the NIL firepower, they'll always be frontrunners in the C-USA. Now, perhaps another four or five years of dominance could lead to an ACC invite, which would be an entirely different story. But if the Flames stay in the C-USA, they'll likely sit atop the league.
It's incredibly difficult to see the future of college football. Things change by the day, if not the minute. Five years ago, no one could've seen Liberty standing a chance to be invited to any college playoff football scenario. Now, I'd argue that have about as good of a shot as any other G5 team.
The people of Liberty University have spent a lot of time watching. Watching weird stuff. Watching other teams succeed. Watching the gulf between the haves and have-nots grow.
But perhaps now roles are reversed. Maybe now we should all be watching the Flames, to see if they could stand an outside shot at crashing the College Football Playoff party and knocking off a football power on the sport's biggest stage.