Ya it’s getting depressing, as they slowly realize the MWC is probably going to overtake them. SMU fans are still in denial and think they will get w big 12 invite down the road.
If they can’t grab CSU/AFA, then yeah I would go with those three plus one more. No obvious fourth candidate. That could be how Rice gets in. At this point I’d guess FAU I suppose.
Yeah, FAU or Georgia State. Focus on cities in the major metros.
1 Like
I’m open to a discussion on metrics that justify the exclusion of Liberty that wouldn’t be based on religious bigotry, but I personally can’t see what they might be. If anyone can provide a good justification that Liberty should be excuded based on a rational criteria then im open to hearing about it.
1 Like
It’s funny but I checked in on Marshall fans after they managed to blow a 17 pt 4th quarter lead against ECU and noticed a conference realignment thread. They were lamenting that conferences would take metro schools without noticing that the metro schools do not actually command the markets they are in…I find that a bit ironic because not only is Marshall in a small market, but they also don’t command any or all of the market they are in. I can’t see how Marshall could be an AAC expansion candidate…unless the AAC really craves a men’s soccer powerhouse.
1 Like
They have a literal creationism museum on campus, and their bio classes teach intelligent design as fact. They are not a serious university, and should not be taken seriously.
6 Likes
So then religious bigotry…because material naturalism (ie, abiogenesis, molecules to man evolution, uniformitarianism, deep time assumptions are not established scientific facts). In fact abiogenesis is literally pseudoscience. We have known since Louis Pastuer that life can only come from life, and in our modern age we know with certainty that biological life is based on highly specified coded information more sophisticated than any machine codes written by man and there are no known natural phenomena that can account for “writing” such code without an intelligent agency. See I’m not trying to get you to believe in God, but if you can’t win the debate with data obtained thru repeatable, falsifiable experiment and direct observation then exclusion of them is based on religious bigotry, and not on the grounds of academic rigor. Now if you don’t want to believe in intelligent design even though we literally live in a universe that appears to be designed, then fine, but I would think ocham’s razor suggests that the simplest explanation is all this biological life that appears to be designed, appears that way because it was designed.
2 Likes
Look, if you want to rebrand “an insistence on teaching the scientific consensus, as supported by mountains of evidence, to undergrads” as “religious bigotry,” be my guest. But no serious university – BYU, Baylor, and Notre Dame all included – teaches Young Earth Creationism as fact within their Biology department. If you wanna believe that a divine being kicked it all off, or did the stuff we can’t yet explain, or whatever else, that’s your M.O. But Liberty University has a department on-campus dedicated to supporting the idea that the Earth is 5,000 years old. There is plenty of scientific evidence against that claim, and insisting otherwise is a failure to prepare their students for any sort of rigorous postgraduate study.
9 Likes
Marshall’s TV ratings are pretty good, as far as the candidate goes. They don’t have a concentrated market like some of the urban schools do, but they had more people watching than a lot of bigger-market schools. (Can’t find the numbers. It was something @SampsonCoachingTree linked to early on.)
2 Likes
I wonder how Liberty teaches the other two parts of the Abrahamic Religion Tree ( Judaism + Islam). All three have the same beginning and are technically "God’s people " since the are descendants of Abraham which God told directly to populate his land.
I’m going to guess they gloss over the whiole relationship/connection…even in context with what the connections mean to Christianity.
I’m thinking Evangelicalism, like Mormons, is entirely an American spin off denomination/religion and they feel justified in creating their own narrative.
I know the Mormons believe the native Americans were Israelites that God teleported?? To North and South America.
Well Judaism is pretty easy…Christianity itself is nothing more than the fulfillment of the covenant God made with Abraham, so Judaism and Christianity are in effect one and the same…God promised a Jewish messiah that would save humanity, and he arrived…and it is false to suggest that the “Jews” rejected Christ, during the 1st century Roman Empire the Christian faith was predominantly Jewish…after Jerusalem was sacked and the Temple was destroyed the Jewish diaspora carried a faith in Christ throughout the empire and it began to do what God intended it to do…save gentiles and Jews. Now I think this will be my last post on the subject because it is a football board and I don’t want to rile anyone up. 
Yes . Islam believes in that covenant also. It just follows a different branch of Abraham’s family tree.
Judaism = pre Jesus
Christian = life of Jesus
Islam = post Jesus word of God through arc angel Gabriel
Mormons= revelations discovered on American soil including the Book of Mormon
I’m just trying to point out they all have strong narratives they believe to be fact and often dusciunt how those connections relate to A) the other MAJOR parts of the Abrahamic Religion Tree and B) Science
Again…this discussion was in response to whether Liberty (with their own set of Evangelical beliefs) should be considered a legitimate place of Academia
1 Like
I knew two Army Officers who were Liberty U grads. One got out after three years and went on to become a Baptist minister.
The other went on to become a full bird Colonel and Chief of Plans for US Army Pacific.
Both good dudes.
Their education appeared to have set them up for professional and personal success.
Non-evangelical Catholic speaking here.
1 Like
As for young earth creationism, I’m proud that it was a priest from my own Catholic Church that first conceived of the “Big Bang” theory.
See here.
4 Likes
Yes, that was my point. If exclusion were based on beliefs itself then it is religious bigotry, and certainly if Liberty were teaching clear factual errors like to cure a bad fever we have to bleed people to let the bad spirits out then I can understand that. Now for me personally I don’t see the path of rejecting materialistic naturalism as a valid academic reason for exclusion, clearly even if one rejects the ID theory, the “nature did it” theory would appear to be just as pseudscientific. Now I think I heard recently about some perverted sex scandal at Liberty but I don’t know if that would justify excluding the University, and if it is, we probably need to kick Baylor out of the Big 12.
Guys…cool it with the religion talk. There’s no way this discussion will end well.
And besides, everyone knows we live in a computer simulation. Now where’s my blue pill.
7 Likes
Lots of cookoopants going on here.
Pretty certain the world is only 2021 years old. I mean that’s what year this is. Don’t be idiots, it’s right there in the year number.
4 Likes
Dude, really, religious ideological bigotry? People who don’t believe in talking snakes and donkeys are religious bigots? People who don’t believe in people living inside a fish are religious bigots? etc. etc. Try thinking.
I don’t think a conference would not invite a school based on religious beliefs unless their beliefs seriously impeded American freedoms.
Liberty wanted to get in the Sun Belt Conference but was denied. Maybe this is why.
The university’s former president, Jerry Fallwell Jr., was accused of nepotism, racism, and alcohol use contravening Baptist teaching on teetotalism.[263] Falwell and his wife Rebecca were involved in a number of sex scandals.[264][265][263][266] These eventually led to his resignation on August 24, 2020.[267]
Liberty has some good athletic facilities but a small campus enrollment of 15,000. They are in a tiny town with not much viewership. Obviously the 80,000 online students do not care to watch Liberty football games. Because of these facts, I do not see the AAC inviting Liberty.
Remember, it’s all about money and eyeballs.
So glad our administration had the foresight to spend a little money…
1 Like