LIBERTY REPORT: Playoff musings

Did Liberty secure its spot in the 16-team FCS playoff field yesterday? Conventional wisdom would say yes, but NCAA selection committees in all sports have done strange things in the past, so there’s no certainty that Liberty’s name will be on the final bracket sheet when it is unveiled tonight.

First off, for first-time readers of this blog, I wanted to clear up some misconceptions about the Flames and their schedule this season. A big part of this job is reading message boards and listening to fans. That’s a good chunk of any writer’s reading base, so you can’t ignore it. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. So let’s tackle a few issues:

Liberty doesn’t deserve to be in the playoffs because it scheduled two Division II teams

Had this been a normal 11-game season, there would not have been a second Division II team to schedule. And Liberty isn’t the only FCS school out there scheduling games against DII schools. Youngstown State played Central State. Furman played Mars Hill. Montana played Central Washington. McNeese State played Delta State. The list goes on.

The second DII school—Glenville State—was a by-product of some late scheduling breakdowns. Liberty’s four-year series was James Madison was supposed to begin this season in Harrisonburg. But JMU requested the series be pushed back a year because the Dukes didn’t want to play a home game while students were on fall break. So Liberty looked around and found a solid FCS opponent in Lafayette to plug in JMU’s place. That left a 12-game schedule with 11 DI games.

Then, North Carolina Central, which was supposed to come to Lynchburg on Sept. 6, pulled out of the deal, leaving Liberty a very late hole to fill in the schedule. LU officials couldn’t find a DI opponent that late in the game, so it scheduled Glenville State. It’s not like the Flames purposefully scheduled two DIIs to stack the schedule with victories. Circumstances dictated it.

Liberty played a soft schedule

The Big South schedule is what it is, to quote a cliche. But in the end, it didn’t look so horrible. After an 0-3 start, Charleston Southern went 7-2 down the stretch to finish 7-5. The Bucs were a couple of extra points away at Stony Brook from going 8-1 down the stretch. The only convincing loss? A 42-0 beatdown from Liberty. Stony Brook hammered Patriot League champion Colgate, 42-20. Liberty beat Stony Brook 33-0. The Flames handled a Gardner-Webb team that nearly took Georgia Tech to overtime. Liberty’s signature win for a while looked like it was going to be Youngstown State, but then the Penguins went in the tank. Not LU’s fault that it worked out that way. Of course, Youngstown State ended its season by going on the road and beating Western Illinois, which had been ranked all season. So maybe that win doesn’t look so bad now.

Liberty barely beat some of the poor teams on its schedule

And Appalachian State beat 6-5 Georgia Southern by one. What’s your point? No team can play at its best level every single week. The football season is a grind. Villanova didn’t blow Towson out a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t seen anyone take the Wildcats to task for that. Nor should anyone. A win is a win. Style points don’t necessarily matter.

I’m pretty sure that the selection committee does more than just take a glance at a prospective playoff team’s scores. If that’s the case, here’s what they’ll see:

* Liberty led Youngstown State by 14 with eight minutes left and was driving for a score to put the game away. Jonathan Crawford caught a pass, got popped over the middle, fumbled the ball, and Youngstown State later scored. Another turnover led to another YSU TD, which tied the game. Then Liberty drove the field systematically and kicked the game-winning field goal. YSU never had the ball with a chance to win the game.

* Liberty led Coastal Carolina by 17 in the third quarter. The Chanticleers kept scoring, but the Flames kept answering. People will point to the 5-point margin of victory, conveniently forgetting that Rashad Jennings slid and took a knee at the CCU 2 when he could have scored a touchdown to put LU up by 12. That was a smart play. As Herm Edwards says, “You play. To win. The game.“ Coastal never had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead in that game.

* Liberty won by 12 at VMI. LU led the entire way, by as many as 18 early in the second quarter. VMI never had the ball with a chance to take the lead or tie. The Flames controlled that game from start to finish.

The Presbyterian loss should end any discussion of Liberty as a playoff team

Had the final weekend worked out differently, I might have agreed with this. If LU had to put its resume up against an 8-3 New Hampshire or an 8-4 Richmond, the Flames would have a tougher argument to sell. Both of those schools have played tougher schedules and have very good victories on their resumes.

But the week worked out the way it did. Leaving a few teams left for discussion:

* Liberty (10-2, 8-2 FCS)

Pros: Convincingly beat No. 12 team in the nation to end the season. Finished regular season ranked 14th in the Sports Network poll. Won conference championship for second straight season in an undefeated fashion in a league ranked ahead of two auto-bid leagues in the GPI. Played four teams from auto bid leagues and beat three of them. Shut out two FCS opponents (CSU, Stony Brook) and held third-place team from SoCon (Elon) to three points.

Cons: Loss to Presbyterian. Lost by two touchdowns at home to the fourth-place team in the Patriot League (Lafayette).

* William & Mary (7-4, 7-3 FCS)

Pros: Beat playoff-bound New Hampshire on the road.

Cons: Finished in fourth place in the CAA’s South Division and didn’t beat any of the teams ahead of it, losing to Richmond, James Madison and Villanova. Lost final two games. Had a chance to play way in the field at home on the final weekend and lost.

* Jacksonville State (8-3, 8-2 FCS)

Pros: Beat fellow three-loss team Tennessee State at home to end season.

Cons: Finished in third place in the OVC, which was ranked 10th in the GPI, a notch below the Big South. No real quality wins outside of Tennessee State. Lost to the two teams above them in the OVC—UT Martin and Eastern Kentucky.

* Florida A&M (9-3, 9-3 FCS)

Pros: Finished strong, crushing an 8-2 Bethune-Cookman team in the finale.

Cons: Lost three games in the MEAC, the 11th rated conference according to the GPI, two spots below the Big South

* Maine (8-4, 8-3 FCS)

Pros: No bad losses. Played JMU tough at home. Won six straight before losing finale to New Hampshire.

Cons: Second place in the CAA North, the much, much weaker of the two CAA divisions. Had a chance to play its way in at home against New Hampshire but lost. Beat only two teams with winning records (7-4 Monmouth, 6-5 Massachusetts). No signature victory.

I’ll leave you with my bracket projection:

How I came up with it ...

1. First formulated the four lowest-rated teams (Texas State, Eastern Kentucky, Colgate, Liberty).

2. Paired those with seeds that made regional sense.

3. Tried to avoid intra-conference matchups in the first two rounds.

Liberty (10-2) at #1 James Madison (10-1)
Wofford (9-2) at South Carolina State (10-2)

The Wofford/SCSU game site could switch depending on who puts in the better bid.

Texas State (8-4) at #4 Montana (11-1)
New Hampshire (9-2) at Cal Poly (8-2)

New Hampshire is going to have to fly somewhere, whether it be to an MVC team or Cal Poly. Weber State makes more geographic sense, but the committee might not want to put two Big Sky teams in the same bracket.

Colgate (9-2) at #3 Villanova (9-2)
Weber State (9-3) at Northern Iowa (10-2)

Same thing. Weber is going to have to fly somewhere, whether it be Cal Poly or an MVC team. This breaks up a Montana-Weber quarterfinal.

Eastern Kentucky (8-3) at #2 Appalachian State (10-1)
Richmond (9-3) at Southern Illinois (9-2)

Richmond might put in a good bid to host, but I seem to remember a lot of playoff games in Carbondale, which makes me think SIU puts in fantastic bids.