We had the privilege of speaking with Liberty Athletic Director Ian McCaw at length about the state of the Liberty Athletic program. We delved into a vast array of topics, focusing on the move of the athletic program from the ASUN into Conference USA. We also touched on several topics surrounding Liberty football, men’s basketball, and other programs on the Mountain.
Today’s feature, as we conclude the series, focuses on the football program under new head coach Jamey Chadwell.
Previous:
Part 1: Conference USA
Part 2: State of the Department
Part 3: Basketball
ASOR: Coach Chadwell has been on the job for about 6 months, as he moves his attention to the 2023 season, how do you think he has navigated the beginning of his time at Liberty?
Ian McCaw: “I think he has done a tremendous job. He has done a great job of embracing Liberty and our mission. He really embodies Liberty, in terms of the way he conducts himself. We are really excited about that. It has been a season of much change with new coaching staff, new system, and obviously a largely changed roster. All of those things have been new, but I think he’s done a wonderful job navigating it. We are certainly excited about our future under his leadership.”
ASOR: As you embark on joining CUSA in football, what is your overall assessment of the program?
Ian McCaw: “I’m really excited, obviously, about Coach Chadwell, playing our inaugural season in Conference USA. I think our fans are, as well. We are seeing that in terms of season ticket renewals at a really high clip. We are right on about the same pace we were a year ago, and obviously that was a schedule with BYU and Virginia Tech playing at home. I think we feel really good about that. I’m very upbeat about the future.”
“The one thing that I think you like to have in college athletics is continuity, and we don’t have a lot of continuity but I think we have the right people from a coaching standpoint, support staff standpoint, and the roster, that I think this will be a program that is going to gel as the year goes on. I think we will continue to get better throughout the year and be poised for success in the future.”
ASOR: There’s been about 50% roster turnover since the end of 2022, what are your thoughts on that in general, and do you think in spite of that Liberty can still have success and compete for a CUSA championship this season?
Ian McCaw: “I think it’s the era we live in when you have a coaching change that you’re going to be more affected by the portal than certainly we have seen in the past. Coach Chadwell has been here 6 months, he’s been through the early signing period for high school athletes, early portal period, late signing period for high school, the late portal period – he’s gone through four recruiting cycles in six months, that has never been the case in the past. It is really a different situation, but I think he has done a great job of kind of rebuilding the roster and putting us in a really good position for this year and years to come.”
ASOR: You mentioned strong ticket sales, having four midweek games, two of those at home, what is the athletic department doing to ensure there is no attendance dropoff for those games?
Ian McCaw: “We are really going to double our efforts on the Lynchburg community for those two midweek games. We are going to lose some fans that maybe have to drive 4 hours on a Saturday and can do that, but wouldn’t be able to do that for midweek games. We’ve got some programming in place with the City and the community that I think will be able to give us a nice bump for those games. I think our students will come in great numbers. We are also doing some faculty/staff appreciation events with our campus community, as well. I feel very good about where we are going to be. We’ve had great cooperation from campus, that’s key to being successful in midweek games.”
ASOR: Looking at future non-conference football schedules, do you feel comfortable where you are at with future schedules and is the model of 1 P5, 1 FCS, 2 G5 as non-conference opponents still the plan moving forward?
Ian McCaw: “That model is what we’d like to do is an FCS, a Power Five, and two regional Group of Fives, unfortunately when you are trying to go from 12 games down to 4 games we weren’t able to get exactly what we wanted every year. I think, particularly as we get to the late ’20s and then in the ’30s, I think our schedule really aligns a lot better with that model than maybe these first couple do.”
“The first couple were kind of whatever we could get worked out on short notice with the teams on our schedule, and the fact that we did have some schools drop us that we would have preferred to keep. I feel like we are in a good spot with the schedules. Also excited about developing some rivalries within Conference USA that fans really look forward to.”
