2026 Schedule Thoughts

 

It's been a few weeks now since the Flames rolled out their 2026 schedule.  Overall, it's another quality schedule that will put the Flames in position to earn an at large birth should they win enough games.  It limits the potentially damaging Q4 games that offer no reward whether you win or lose.  There are quite a few Quad 1 and 2 games in the non conference that will give the Flames a lot of opportunities for resume building wins.  CUSA will see it's share of changes as well as the Flames will host newcomers Missiouri State and Delaware.  The Flames also will face DBU & LA Tech in their final seasons in CUSA before departing for new conferences.  

Citadel - The Flames will load up the bus and head to Charleston to open the season.  They went 31-26 overall and finished 4th in the SOCON last year with an RPI of 101.

WVU - Liberty welcomes the Mountaineers to the mountain for a 3 game set.  This marks the 1st time in over a decade that a P4 has visited the mountain for a 3 game set.  They tied for 1st in the Big12 and went 44-16 overall while finishing 28th in the RPI.  They wont the Clemson regional before losing both games to LSU in the Super Regional.  This will be a tremendous early season opportunity for the Flames. 

High Point - The Panthers finished 39-19 and 2nd in the Big South with an RPI of 94.  The Flames will play the Panthers twice in a home and home matchup.  

Hofstra - Hofstra comes to Liberty for 3 once again.  The Pride finished 18-36 and last in the CAA while posting an RPI of 212.  Liberty needs to win at least 2 of 3 here and preferably sweep.  

Harvard - Harvard finished 4th in the Ivy League and finished 14-28 and #231 in the RPI.  The Flames will need to sweep this series at home.  

UNCG - UNCG finished 21-33 and 6th in the SOCON while finishing #153 in the RPI.  Home and home for the 2 clubs.  

Missouri State - The Bears finished 2nd in the Missiouri Valley league with an overall mark of 31-25.  They finished at #174 in the RPI.  The Bears make their way to Lynchburg as a new CUSA foe.  

Wake Forest - The Demon Deacs finished 8th in the ACC while posting an overall record of 39-22.  Even in a bit of a down year they still finished with an RPI of 29.  The Deacs went 2-2 in the Knoxville Regional before falling to host UT.  The Flames split the season series with the Deacs last year. 

UVA - The Cavs welcome Chris Pollard in to take over for longtime skipper Brian O'Connor who departed for Hail State.  Liberty and the Hoos will play a home and home this year.  The Hoos went 32-18 which was good for 6th in the loaded ACC while finishing 66th in the RPI.  The Flames swept the Cavs last year in the season series.  

NC State - The Wolfpack went 35-21 and finished 4th in the ACC while posting an RPI of 35.  The Flames beat the Wolfpack in a early season midweek matchup last year and will return to Raleigh to play a lone road midweek once again.  

VT -  The Hokies went 31-25 and finished 12th in the ACC while posting an RPI of 56.  The Hokies and Flames will play a pair of games again this spring after the Flames swept the season series last year as well to go 4-0 in state against ACC schools.  

Duke - The Blue Devils went 41-21 and finished 7th in the ACC and finished 32nd in the RPI.  Duke won the Athens Regional before falling to Murray State in their own Super Regional.   Liberty won the lone matchup against the Blue Devils as the 2nd was cancelled.  The Flames have done very well against a really good Duke program the last decade.  

Delaware - The Blue Hens went 28-25 and finished 7th in the CAA while posting an RPI of 156.  Liberty gets the Blue Hens in Lynchburg in the Tyler August revenge matchup.  Just a good hearted joke as August transferred to the Flames from Delaware prior to last year.  

UNCC - Liberty filled in the last spot with a sneaky good Charlotte team that finished 36-22 overall and 2nd in the American.  The 49ers finished 67th in the RPI but missed an at large spot due to going 1-2 in the American tournament.  This could be a key late season midweek home matchup for the Flames if things play out like they hope. 

A few notes on the conference games.  It's hard to tell exactly how these things will play out as there is always so much defection at this level.  However, Liberty has LA Tech, Jax State, Mizzou State, Delaware, FIU at home and DBU, KSU, NMSU, MTSU & WKU and the tournament is at KSU.  At first glance the road schedule could be a bit tougher than the home schedule if DBU & KSU hold serve.  WKU took a beating in the portal so I'm not sure they will be nearly as good.  Again, it's really hard to tell how this shakes out but La Tech and DBU are almost always good and at minimum you have those series split.  

Key Stretches 

-Liberty will be shooting to go 4-2 those first 2 series of the year.  Ideally you'd like to win 2/3 both times but that's exactly what the Flames need to shoot for.

-Hofstra & Harvard series are teams that are usually in the 200 range in the RPI and the Flames host both at home.  Ideally, the Flames would sweep both of these series but 5-1 would be ok.  Anything much less could be problematic to the Flames RPI unless either team takes a step forward from the usual.  You might think why does this stretch matter.  Well, these games are virtually must wins that are built into every teams schedule that wants to be a contender.  Losses here are extremely damaging to the RPI.  

-March 31st - April 22 is brutal stretch for the Flames.  It starts in Raleigh with a road midweek with NC State before traveling to WKU for 3.  WKU could be down this year but they have given the Flames fits the last couple years so far in CUSA play.  The Flames then head up 460 and 81 to Blacksburg for a road game with the Hokies.  They return home to face Jacksonville State for 3 in a series that will likely have some intensity behind it after last years forfeit gate where Ben Blair was mistakenly left off the roster leading to a forfeit.  Then the Flames head to Duke for a road matchup with the Blue Devils.  They will then board a flight to Dallas to face DBU for 3 games before returning home to face Duke on a Tuesday in Lynchburg and then UVA on Wednesday in Charlottesville.  This stretch includes 3 road ACC games against top flight ACC teams and 1 on the road (including 2 back to back) plus the road series with DBU and WKU and a home series against contender Jax State.  This stretch will likely determine the Flames season.  It's hard to put a number on this area but the Flames will need to try to hang around .500 during this stretch if they want to be a contender.  WKU is the wild card, with all the defections they could take a real step back but I'm not going to count them out until we see what they look like on paper.  1 of those defections will be starting at Catcher for the Flames in Kyle Hvidsten.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turning the page

  The 2025 season is in the rearview and the Flames set their sights on 2026.  Liberty lost pitching coach Andrew See who led Liberty to the 2nd best ERA in CUSA in his lone season with the Flames.  Virtually the entire pitching staff had their best year of their career with the Flames and See.  Kendall Rogers reported today that the Flames were able to make a huge hire and pull Keller Bradford away from his role as Pitching Coach with Southern Miss.  Bradford finished his collegiate career at Southern Miss and spent the last 2 seasons as the PC for the Golden Eagles.  The Golden Eagles had a team ERA of 4.03 and held opponents to a .242 team BA which resulted in being ranked 2nd in the Sunbelt in overall pitching.  Southern Miss has always been a quality program and this is a very nice pull for Coach LeCroy and Liberty.   Schedule wise we've started to hear of a few games on the schedule next year.  As it stands now the Flames will open...
Read more

More Additions to the 2026 Team

The Flames have turned up the heat on the recruiting trail here in the final week of June.  Liberty has added 5 commitments from the transfer portal and will most likely add 1 to 2 more.  Here's a look at what they've picked up. Jordan Jaffe - Jaffe is a right handed hitting Corner Infielder/DH that has just flat raked for 3 years at Richmond.  He finished 2025 with a .364 BA, 10 HR's and 59 RBI's and a whopping 1.028 OPS.  In 2024 his stat line was .317 10 HR's 44 RBI's and .964 OPS.  In 2023 he hit .314 with 12 HR's 59 RBI's and a .989 OPS.  As you can see he will easily slot in the middle of the order with Nick Barone & Jaxon Sorenson and provide the Flames with another big time RH bat.  Jaffe was highly sought after and is 1 of the most proven bats the Flames have picked up from an equal or higher level of competition in the portal era.   Ryan Drumm - Drumm is a right handed hitting Outfielder that can play all 3 spots from Butler....
Read more

2025 Season Preview

The Bradley LeCroy era will kick off with a 3-game set in Lynchburg against St Johns.  Naturally, a potential snow event of 3-6 inches is projected on Tuesday so hopefully the games aren't impacted.  The Flames do of course have turf which will certainly help efforts, although the weekend forecast currently shows rain on Saturday and Sunday as well.  For the first time in a bit the Flames are picked 5th of 10 teams in CUSA and have just 1 pre-season All Conference team rep in SP Ben Blair.  That shouldn't be a surprise given the turnover the program faced after the coaching change which was fairly late in the process.  We were able to see the revamped LeCroy Flames 3 times in the Fall against VT, Longwood & a Canadian HS National team.  The Flames smashed VT and showed what the lineup could look like if the Fall carries over into the Spring.  The Flames won't feel the weight of being the favorite this year and can hunt for once.  That being sa...
Read more