This is out of the blue; they will be coming in as an independent as no conference will have them. They also hired disgraced-former Baylor AD, Ian McCaw, to be their AD and word is that they believe they can be the Baptist BYU or Notre Dame.
Liberty even offered to open its checkbook. Sources told me that in 2016, Liberty offered Conference USA millions of dollars more than the usual $2 million admission fee for an invitation.
How many millions more? One source pegged the offer at $24 million. The offer coincidentally came at about the same time C-USA was learning its TV revenue would soon crater, going from paying $1.1 million per school annually to about $200,000.
But C-USA presidents, who had the final call, were unwilling to invite a private, evangelical school with conservative values and a sometimes controversial chancellor. That left the Flames to chart their own course.