February 16, 2017. It’s a day that as Liberty fans, students, and alumni, we waited for since we can remember. It’s the day that it was announced the Flames will be moving to the FBS. A dream in the making for over 46 years.
But, for the 2017 Liberty football team, it serves as a transition year. Because of the transition, Liberty will be ineligible for the 2017 Big South Football Championship. The Flames are also ineligible for the FCS Playoffs. So, where does the 2017 Liberty football team draw it’s motivation?
“I really dealt with that question a lot myself,” senior defensive lineman Dia’Vante Brown said. “You got to find your why. A lot of the older guys called me, Niko Davis, Chima Uzowihe, Cory Freeman, and I was like, I’m one of the last people on the championship team that went to the 2nd round of the playoffs. For that, they say, ‘we still care about that. It may not look like you’re playing for anything, but, for us watching, we still care about it. And if your unit isn’t producing at the level that it has been, then that’s on you.’ That just gave me motivation.”
Dia’Vante Brown
Brown isn’t alone in his line of thinking. “We want to go out and win our football games,” kicker Alex Probert stated. “We want to compete. We’re going to do our best to win the football game. The only thing that has changed is maybe we won’t have the awards at the end of the season, but we’ve changed nothing in our preparation. We’re going out and playing hard football, being smart with our preparation, and doing our best to get that end result, regardless of what options we may have.”
For others, particularly other seniors, they acknowledged the disappointment of not being able to play for a conference championship or playoff berth.
As senior captain Michael Henderman said, “It’s definitely bittersweet, obviously, when you’re playing football games you want to have something to work for and play for like conference championships, and we won’t be able to play for that.”
“Yeah, it might suck that we don’t get to play for a ring or championship,” senior fullback Thomas Kennedy said, “but it’s not all that I’m here for. I’m here to play football and get an education.”
Despite being ineligible for the Big South Championship, games Liberty plays against other Big South members will still count towards the conference standings. That’s motivation enough right there for some members of the team.
“It may not be official that we can win the conference,” Kennedy said, “but we want to go out and hopefully win our conference, beat all the teams in our conference. All the things that are set for what we want to accomplish may not be official, but I can guarantee you we’ll be ready to play.”
Thomas Kennedy
Henderman had similar thoughts. “Knowing that the Big South still has to go through us to get an outright win, that’s one of the things that has been motivating us throughout the preseason.”
For most of the underclassmen, they look at the 2017 season as a year to lay a successful foundation for future success.
“As a team, with that jump up to FBS, we’re ready to show everyone that we’ve been putting in the hard work and we can fit with the other schools,” Probert said.
Defensive lineman Gregg Storey agreed, “Now that we’re going FBS, we need to make a statement, especially going into next year when we start playing all big opponents.”
The team can’t make a statement to future FBS opponents by losing to FCS opponents this season. “This year, it’s just don’t underestimate the FCS opponents,” Storey said. “Just like the last few years, there are some good FCS opponents out there. We play really good ones this year too. We just need to make a statement, just get our names out there.”
The FBS move is a dream come true for Liberty fans and alumni, but the 2017 season will always have a strange feeling to it as the team is ineligible for postseason recognition. Regardless, these next few months are extremely important to the future of Liberty football.
“I still have a chance to impact guys,” Brown said. “We can have a season now to skyrocket a lot of these guys and the team to seasons they can have in the future. Right now, even if some guys aren’t necessarily on the first team or playing as much as they will in the future, right now, I can be a part of them being superstars later.”
Hopefully one day, we will all be able to look back to the 2017 season as the one that launched the Liberty football program into a successful FBS program.
