Liberty Baseball has unveiled the 2023 baseball schedule. The Flames will play 16 games against teams that made the NCAA Regionals and 8 games against Super Regional teams including 7 on the road vs VT, ECU & Southern Miss. KSU, Wake, UVA & VCU also made the regionals.
The goal is to challenge the team early and also keep the RPI up in the midweek games. The Flames will open the year on the road at Southern Miss in a big time mid-major showdown that will get a lot of attention around the nation. The Golden Eagles finished 23-7 in CUSA and #22 in the RPI and won their regional at home with wins over Kennesaw State and back to back wins against LSU after dropping the opener to LSU. They would then host the Ole Miss Rebels in huge super regional against their hated in state rivals that had incredible atmosphere all through the post season. The Rebels shut out the Golden Eagles in both games and silenced the massive crowds that showed up. 11.7's College Baseball will likely rank both Liberty and Southern Miss in it's preseason top 10. Liberty will host the Bryant Bulldogs in their next weekend matchup who finished 30-27 and #107 in the RPI. Liberty has faced Bryant several times in the past decade and they will be a formidable foe from the Northeast conference that won't hurt the RPI should the Flames drop a game. Teams from the frigid Northeast are of course always looking for games down south the first 3 or 4 weekends of the year when it may not be possible to play back home. Bryant is one of the better programs from the region and is a nice add for Liberty. They opened the 22 season with a shocking 3 game sweep of ECU who was ranked #12 at the time to stun the College Baseball world. They played 5 games against ODU and UConn from there and lost all 5 against quality opposition. Next, the Flames will head down to Greenville, SC for another monster mid-major matchup with the Pirates of ECU. As noted, ECU started off 1 and 5 against Bryant, UNC & Campbell before getting off the ropes to finish #18 in the RPI with a 46 and 21 record including winning the AAC title against Houston. They would host another regional that featured one of the best atmospheres of the post season that saw them win their regional with wins over Coppin State and UVA and then a loss against Coastal before knocking Coastal out in the deciding game. Coach Cliff Godwin's club hosted a Super Regional against #8 Texas and won the first game before falling 9-8 after a nearly 6 hour rain delay. It didn't look like a single person left the stadium and made for an incredible atmosphere. Ultimately, the Longhorns would win 11-1 in the final game to move on to the CWS and leave ECU at the altar of a CWS appearance once again. These are massive series that will allow the Flames to show they belong in the conversation with the elite mid major teams that are a threat to make the CWS and will get early national attention. Liberty will also provide a return trip to Winthrop to face their former Big South foes for 3 games. Liberty swept an early season home series against Winthrop and the Eagles finished just 18-34 overall. Garret Gainey and Andrew Jenner will face their old club in this matchup.
The mid-week features home and homes with Duke, UVA, Wake & VT from the ACC. All clubs that Liberty is used to seeing on a year end year out basis. All but Duke had the best hitting team that I've seen in my time following the Flames as well in 22. VT finished 45 and 14 and won the regional they hosted with probably the weakest pod in the field against Wright State & Columbia. Gonzaga turned out to be a very weak 2 seed. They would lose to Oklahoma in the Super Regional in Blacksburg in a series that went the distance. Liberty saw just how good Oklahoma was in the regionals as well. UVA got out to a hot start before staggering down the stretch a bit and finished 39-19 overall with an RPI of 28. As noted earlier, Coastal knocked them out of the Greenville Regional. Wake Forest went 41-19 with an RPI of 15 before going 1 and 2 in the Maryland Regional. Duke struggled to a 22-32 record and a RPI of 107 that included 2 losses to Liberty. Liberty went 2 and 5 vs these 4 teams in 2022.
Rounding out the mid-week action are single game early March home matchup's with Longwood of the Big South of VCU and a home and home with ODU. Longwood finished 20-33 and #227 in the RPI and likely filled a hole that the Flames may have had trouble filling. VCU went 42-20 and finished with an RPI of 52. The Rams came out hot beating Georgia and UNC in the Chapel Hill regional before getting double dipped by the Tar Heels. Coach Shawn Stiffler would depart for the vacant Notre Dame job in the offseason after several very good years at VCU. Finally, ODU returns to the schedule for the first time in the Scott Jackson era with a home and home. The Monarchs have revived their program in recent years and went 41-17 with an RPI of 46 in 2022. They fell in the CUSA title game to La Tech 8-7 and were left out of the post season.
In the conference portion of the season Liberty will face the usual ASUN teams which was the 15th overall ranked conference in terms of RPI in 22. The ASUN scrapped the division play and the Flames will play new member Austin Peay who went 19-37 and were #244 in the RPI in the Ohio Valley as part of the 23 lineup. Another interesting nugget is the Flames will face KSU, FGCU & Stetson all on the road and will miss Jacksonville. Those 4 teams are generally the most likely challengers to the ASUN crown for the Flames though Jacksonville State could enter the mix in 23 as well, they will travel to Lynchburg for 3.
Future Schedules
- The 24 schedule looks on paper to have the makings of what would easily be the best schedule of all time. ECU will return the 3 game series and travel to Lynchburg. The Flames will also return the Coastal series for 3 and travel to Grand Canyon for a very intriguing matchup with the Antelopes. Coastal finished at #29 in the RPI and Grand Canyon finished at #55 in the RPI with a 41-21 record including wins over Arizona and #10 Oregon State, 2 over #25 Texas Tech, 1 over #6 Stanford. Further, this will be the first year in CUSA and will feature series against La Tech & Dallas Baptist 36th and 30th in the RPI. Add in Kennesaw State in the CUSA slate and assuming the Flames could secure the usual 7 to 9 ACC midweek games plus the combination of VCU and ODU and Liberty should be in the neighborhood 30 Top 50 RPI games with just what we know so far and assuming no other CUSA teams reach that level.
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