Just some observations on Liberty and the possible impact it had in the MTSU decision. The Flames’ fans and booster orgs did a full sell out blitz to disparage the MAC and pressure MTSU into staying in CUSA so that WKU would be locked in. They knew WKU was married to the idea of jumping to the MAC as it’s best option but that MTSU was economically challenged. They also knew the MAC wouldn’t take one without the other. All they had to do was focus their pressure on Murfreesboro.
Liberty has been spreading money around like a drunken sailor recently trying desperately to buy some respect within the FBS. They were desperate to be invited to join a conference and once they latched into CUSA they were willing to do most anything to keep its two remaining highest profile and nearest neighbors in.I don’t think anything can be underestimated regarding pressure and under the table promises Liberty might have made to MTSU. WKU will now have two teams to hate: MTSU for selling out to Liberty and Liberty for blocking their path to the MAC and keeping them in a conference where they’ll have to make regular trips in all sports to West Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, and South Florida.
Meanwhile, I think Liberty’s jump to CUSA will have an impact on Miami’s OOC scheduling. We’ve scheduled a home and home with them for 2023 in Oxford and 2025 in Lynchburg. In fact, Liberty is scheduled to play a total of four MAC teams in 2023.
With Liberty’s need to play eight CUSA games, most of those commitments with MAC teams will obviously need to be either revised or canceled.
I am disappointed that this expansion didn’t work out, mostly because I think WKU would have been a good addition with solid hoops and football. Didn’t really care much at MTSU, though.
I am bit surprised that the MAC didn’t just take WKU, leaving flexibility for a future addition of a 14th member or as a hedge in case one of our members decides to drop down a division or even drop football due to the difficult financial situation.
I presume that the economics just didn’t work out for current MAC members as ESPN probably wanted them both to bolt C-USA in order to consider “sweetening the pot.”
I think you’re right, Cincykid. The WKU folks are really hacked off. They already hated MTSU. Now they have a reason to hate Liberty, too. And they have to play them in every sport every year. The makings of some very bad blood!
That’s why they call their rivalry “100 Miles of Hate.”
I know from folks in Huntington that Liberty also made a late run at Marshall, trying to convince the Herd to stay in CUSA, but Marshall demurred and went to the SunBelt.
Shouldnt we blame MTSU and not Liberty. Why should Liberty be any different than any other school in America. Oklahoma and Texas blew up the Big 12- they didnt give a F about Oklahoma State or Texas Tech. The Big 10 blew up the CCHA and our hockey was collateral damage.
Kudos to Liberty for out maneuvering others and making CUSA tolerable.
Redsea…were you one who suggested we pick up Liberty as a MAC program? Somebody was. I can’t remember who. I guess see Liberty from the same lense as most university administrators and athletics directors have viewed them over the last few years as they have attempted to buy prominence academically and athletically. Their willingness to manipulate CUSA and MTSU at the expense of WKU is an example, even more so since they won’t have any allegiance to that conference whatsoever. It was merely a way for the camel to get its nose under the tent.
I’m not aware of anyone in the MAC ever trying to stop anyone else from leaving. Everything Liberty does is completely self serving. They really don’t give a crap about CUSA or any of its members. They just didn’t want it to disband and leave them wandering around in the desert for the foreseeable future. They’ll leave CUSA in a heartbeat. MTSU has made a deal with the devil. I hope it’s worth it in terms of getting their facility upgrades. Then they’re hoping to hold hands with Memphis and abandon the CUSA as well
I hope that Miami is also doing everything under the guise of self-serving. If a bigger conference came calling, I’d say “See ya” so fast to every direction of Michigan and all the other schools in Ohio.
Where’s your angst for Texas and Oklahoma, who started this current round of conference musical chairs?
I really think Liberty had nothing to do with this. I think MTSU made a short sighted decision to collect fees of the teams leaving the conference and potentially ended up dooming their athletic department.
In today’s cut-throat college football landscape where schools hop from conference to conference in the name of money, I would call Liberty smart and shrewd in that scenario. If the MAC were falling apart the way CUSA is, I would hope that our AD would work the system similarly. Conference loyalty is a relic of the past, if it ever even existed. Perhaps it’s just an ideal, a myth. Heck, schools were coming and going from the MAC in the 50s. Collegiate athletics is a big money game, and if you’re not looking out for number one, you’re liable to get left in the dust.
Not the entire college sports landscape has been scrambled. The Big 10, Mountain West, ACC, Pac 12 and MAC have been relatively stable in the past. The ACC has expanded but looks to bind universities with similar academics and Athletics budgets together on the eastern seaboard. The Big10 is largely a collection of huge research universities that hadn’t seen anyone leave since the University of Chicago quit. It also expanded once - pulling in Rutgers, Maryland, Penn State and Nebraska - all universities similar to the others. The SEC is largely a collection of large southern flagship universities dedicated to dominating big money football. They pulled in Texas A&M snd Missouri and now Texas snd Oklahoma but nobody is leaving - although Vanderbilt ought to. The Mountain West is a stable collection of mid-size universities in the West who don’t necessarily fit in as PAC12 universities. There is at least come cohesiveness among several conferences.
Nothing like Liberty, a private Evangelical Christian University, acting like a voracious killer when it comes to someone else in their conference trying to better themselves. I wonder if their administration attends morality classes. Probably not.