Couple of pics to set the scene today:

The lettering is up and the scoreboard is finally ready, just in time for Liberty’s home opener with North Carolina Central at Williams Stadium.

Some fans toting giant flags make their way to the stands early.

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First, the Twitter feed is here.

For those watching at home or keeping up on the Internet, let’s make this thing interactive. Send comments or questions to , or post in the comments section, and I’ll try to answer questions as best as I can, at least in the first half. After that, deadlines might make things tricky.

As we did last week in Morgantown, some things I think about this game; i.e., the random thoughts edition of the blog:

1. I was driving down Rivermont Avenue earlier today and saw several cars with Liberty flags flying. Can’t say I remember ever seeing that on that side of town at any point last year. There’s seemingly some actual buzz in Lynchburg about the Flames. Playing well against West Virginia on regional television certainly didn’t hurt that cause. The school’s expecting around 15,000 fans for the game. more than an hour before kickoff, the student side is filling up, and the tailgate lots are full. Liberty football is definitely an event on campus now.

2. The last I checked, the point spread on this one was Liberty by 30. I just tried to check again, but the friendly campus filters won’t let me anywhere near an offshore betting site. Hmph.

2a. No, I’m not looking to put a sawbuck down on Hawaii or anything.

2b. Thursday, I picked a 41-17 Liberty win, so if I was a betting man, I’d take the Eagles to cover.

3. A Green Bay Packers scout is hanging out in the press box.

4. Blues Traveler’s “Hook” just popped up on my iPod. Forgot how much I liked that song.

5. OK, back to football. I think Liberty makes getting the run game going a major emphasis. Danny Rocco’s MO has always been to grind games out on the ground, especially in tight games in the fourth quarter. The next two weeks—at Lafayette and vs. James Madison—will probably provide those sorts of scenarios. B.J. Hayes and Aldreakis Allen need to gain some confidence running inside, because I just don’t think Liberty is built to succeed as a 70-30 pass-run team, which was pretty much the case at West Virginia last week.

5b. I asked Rocco Thursday why Danny Broggin didn’t play at WVU. Broggin was the starter heading out of spring but quickly fell behind Hayes and Allen during the summer. The short and simple answer: LU had little chance to even get Hayes and Allen going, so playing Broggin just sort of fell out of the gameplan.

6. Look for Tommy Beecher to take some downfield shots tonight. This is a huge game for Chris Summers and Freddie Brown to gain confidence in the vertical, outside passing game, Summers especially. NCCU plays sort of a non-traditional 3-4 defense and plays with mostly man-to-man principles, so those shots will be open.

7. I don’t think I want to get into a chicken-wing eating contest with NCCU guard Markee Watts, who is 6-foot-6 and 394 pounds. Goodness.

7a. I do love chicken wings though. The hotter the better.

8. Congrats to NCCU, by the way, for gaining membership in the MEAC. Ask Longwood how tough it is to hang in Division I athletics as an independent. NCCU’s a great fit for a league that’s losing a transitional member in Winston-Salem State, which elected to suspend its move to Division I and will now fall back into the DII CIAA.

9. On a national FCS scale, I think we’ll stop hearing from the Pioneer League folks about how non-scholarship football is played at the same level as scholarship football. A sampling of Pioneer scores today:

- Lenoir-Rhyne 42, Davidson 0
- Urbana 14, Dayton 13
- St. Francis 31, Morehead State 0
- Northern Colorado 24, San Diego 12 (4th)

That’s all for now. I’ll post quick updates on the Twitter feed during the game.