If you bet for VHS against Betamax and won a billion dollars, what would you do with your loot? If you’re Jerry Falwell Jr., second-generation president of Liberty University in Virginia, you would invest the money in Betamax. Is he an idiot? Or is he a savvy reader of higher-ed tea leaves?

Here’s why we ask: John Fea directs our attention this morning to another mind-boggling story from Lynchburg. Falwell’s Liberty has guaranteed a whopping $1.32 million to Old Dominion for an early-season football game, according to local news reports.

Flame out?

Liberty University has that kind of money to throw around. Over the past fifteen years, the school has reaped obscene profits from its online platform. In addition to splashing out for its sports programs, Liberty has poured money into brick-and-mortar campus amenities.

As I noted after the first research trip to Liberty for my new book, that sort of investment seems either stupid or prophetic. If the old-fashioned model of higher education is dead, then why put so much money into it? Why invest in sports and campus gyms if modern higher ed means online ed?

Maybe Falwell is right. Maybe people still want a campus. Maybe they still want eccentric professors. Maybe they want huge sports stadiums. When people think “college,” maybe they want all those things.

If so, Falwell is investing wisely; building his school into a new higher-ed powerhouse.

Or maybe he’s just stuck in a twentieth-century rut. Maybe he’s still insecure about the reputation of fundamentalist colleges and he’s willing to spend whatever it takes to rub his success in the face of Notre Dame and Harvard.