This has been a pretty strange off season for us.  Matters that we once thought were settled were suddenly unsettled.  After a protracted series of discussions, numerous legal bills, and a lot of input from our loyal readers, A Sea of Red was born out of our former name.  What we plan to bring you is essentially the same product we have been for years now, but I cannot help but feel like things are bit different now.  Things are changing.

It isn’t just the craziness surrounding our rebranding.  My non-aSoR (still haven’t figured out a good shorthand for our new name) life has been changing as well.  I am currently three weeks into a new job that I’ve been working for a year to get.  New schedule, new people, new location.  If that weren’t enough, sometime between the Virginia Tech game and the home opener against Jacksonville, my wife and I will be welcoming our first child into the world.  Exciting, but stressful stuff.  And for Liberty football, this is a season of equal change.

For the first time in what seems like forever, Liberty goes into the season with a new starting QB.  Sure, we all know Stephon Masha, he’s not a new face.  However, he brings a distinctively different flavor to the position than we have been accustomed to for the past four seasons.  Packaged with this change comes a new, purportedly up tempo offense and a new Offensive Coordinator.  The Flames’ top WR is gone.  A young receiver with a ton of flash and potential is poised to take over.  The team’s top RB’s are gone as well, giving way for Todd Macon to have a share of the spotlight.  Those are just a few highlights of the change the Liberty Flames face in 2016.  The flavor of football played in Williams Stadium this season will be distinctively different.  Will it be the beginning of the Flames’ identity as a program, or a temporary lay over on the way to Buckshot Calvert’s more pocket oriented skill set?  There is no way to know right now, but the season of change is finally here.

There was a point this summer, with all of the tumult, and all of the impending life changes, that I wondered if I wanted to be a part of this anymore.  Truth be told, I wondered if I wanted anything to do with Liberty University.  Like all misguided notions though, this was born out of a focus on the wrong things.  No matter how I feel we have been treated, no matter whatever else, I love this school.  I love our readers.  I love our athletes.  And I love being a Flame.  As football season has approached, I have been reminded why Jon and I started this place.  In this season of change for everyone, that is one thing that will not be changing.  Here’s to a decidedly different, but successful 2016 season.