Some promos:

—Twitter feed can be accessed here.

—In Wednesday’s News & Advance, look for a deeper look at Liberty’s astonishing turnover numbers.

—Thursday, I’ll have a feature on Flames quarterback Tommy Beecher, a Concord, N.C., native who once attended Gardner-Webb football camps as a young player.

—No Q&A this week, as no one really covers GWU with any regularity.

—Basketball: Women’s preview will run in Thursday’s paper; the men’s preview will run Friday. Colleague Nathan Warters will be covering the Flames’ season opener at George Mason Friday, since he’ll be in the D.C. area for Saturday’s Virginia Tech-Maryland football game.

Some notes from today:

—First, some injury news for both teams. Liberty is dealing with three injuries on the defensive line. Asa Chapman is probable for Saturday’s game. Daryl Robertson (ankle) and Terry Adams both underwent MRIs this week and more on their status will be known later in the week. Linebacker Ian Childress continues to battle knee problems but he’s expected to play. RB B.J. Hayes (shoulder) is still questionable for Saturday as well.

On Gardner-Webb’s side, LB Jeffery Williams, who was the Big South’s preseason defensive player of the year, is out for the year with a torn MCL suffered Saturday at Coastal Carolina. S Chris James took a huge hit on the knee from a helmet Saturday at Coastal and is presumed to be done for the year as well.

—I wanted to take a quick look back at Liberty’s 15-game Big South win streak, because I started to wonder just how many of those games have even been close. And by close, I don’t necessarily mean final margin. But did the opponent have an opportunity in the last five minutes of the game to take the lead or at least force overtime?

So let’s take a look:

Game 1, 11/11/06—Liberty 34, Charleston Southern 20: The Flames led 27-7 at halftime and 34-7 before CSU scored twice in the final 3:50.

Game 2, 11/18/06—Liberty 38, VMI 32: Liberty led 24-9 at halftime and though VMI got back within six at the end, the Keydets never had the ball down by a possession or less with a chance to tie or take the lead.

Game 3, 10/20/07—Liberty 50, Charleston Southern 10: Flames led 20-10 at halftime and outscored the Bucs 30-0 in the second half.

Game 4, 11/3/07—Liberty 37, Coastal Carolina 24: Flames led 23-10 at halftime and 37-10 before Coastal scored twice in the final eight minutes.

Game 5, 11/10/07—Liberty 73, VMI 34: Flames had leads of 28-0 and 73-28.

Game 6, 11/17/07—Liberty 31, Gardner-Webb 0: Shutout, so, uh, no.

Game 7, 10/4/08—Liberty 43, Coastal Carolina 38: Liberty led 24-14 at halftime and the Flames stayed ahead by a score or more the rest of the way. Coastal cut the lead to five but never got the ball back.

Game 8, 10/11/08—Liberty 33, Stony Brook 0.

Game 9, 10/25/08—Liberty 42, Charleston Southern 0.

Game 10, 11/8/08—Liberty 38, VMI 26: Again, VMI cut it to five in the final three minutes, but the Flames scored quickly after an onsides kick to put the game out of reach.

Game 11, 11/15/08—Liberty 30, Gardner-Webb 10: Flames led 24-3 at halftime.

Game 12, 10/17/08—Liberty 58, Coastal Carolina 13: Liberty led 16-6 late in the third before blowing the game open with 42 straight points.

Game 13, 10/24/08—Liberty 20, Charleston Southern 13: CSU had the ball inside the Flames 20 with less than 20 seconds to play. This is the only time during the streak that Liberty was truly threatened.

Game 14, 10/31/08—Liberty 55, Presbyterian 19: It was 55-5 at one point.

Game 15, 11/7/08—Liberty 54, VMI 14: All turnovers, all the time by the Keydets.

Interesting facts about the streak:

* Liberty has scored at least 30 points in 14 of the 15 games, with the lone exception being this year’s game at Charleston Southern.

* The average score of the games during the streak: 42-17.

* In the last eight games of the streak, only VMI last season has broken 20 points against the Flames.

* Liberty has broken the 50-point mark five times during the streak and has hit at least 40 points seven times during the run.

* The Flames have three shutouts during the streak and have held opponents to 10 or fewer points five times during the run.

I guess the point of all of this is that there is nothing fluky about this run. It’s pure dominance and illustrates just how much separation there is between the Flames and the rest of the conference. And let’s not forget, the two Big South losses Liberty took in 2006 in Danny Rocco’s first year were by a combined five points. That’s why any potential Liberty loss would be an upset of gigantic proportions.

—Saturday, Rocco noted that he was “afraid” of the VMI game, “really scared,“ actually.

“I never should have watched Navy-Notre Dame,“ Rocco said Tuesday. “I was just all knotted up. Notre Dame can’t take the ball back. Any time you’re playing these wishbone, option teams, it’s deja vu. ... I was talking to my brother Frank before the game ... and I said to him, ‘Frank, if we can get them to fumble, we can name the score.‘ And that’s kind of what happened. But if we didn’t get them to fumble the football, it certainly would have been a different game.“

—I asked Rocco about his thoughts on his team’s playoff chances, and how much he pays attention to what’s going on nationally in FCS football.

“I’d be lying to you if I told you I’m not aware of it. But I don’t do any research. People put stuff on my desk and I look at it. So I’m not spending any time or any energy in the area of well, if this happens or of this happens, who are these guys playing, where are we ranked and all of that stuff. On the same token, as things get dropped on my desk, I certainly look at it and make some sense out of it. I put it away in a file and move forward. I don’t really communicate to our football team about it. These are always the trickiest positions to be in. It’s kind of like the elephant in the room. You can’t acknowledge the elephant. You’ve got to focus solely on the next game, this next practice, this next meeting. You know, I’m meeting with them in a half hour. I’ve got to have a good meeting. I’ve got to have some things to say to this football team to help get them ready and motivated for Gardner-Webb.

“But I’m aware of the fact that there are a lot of things going on. And I still like to think this football team is in control of their own destiny.“

—If there was a criticism about Saturday’s game, it was that the Flames were a touch inconsistent on defense, and they couldn’t establish a run game against VMI’s eight-man front. Yes, LU kicked four field goals. But let’s be honest. LU isn’t going to throw the ball in the fourth quarter up 37-14. So two of those field goals were just “situation of the game” sort of things.

“Six of 12 possessions were either three plays and punt or three plays and kick a field goal,“ Rocco said. “Probably the most disappointing event for me offensively was after we stopped them on downs defensively down near our goal line. We take over and I’m saying, ‘we get a couple of first downs here, we’ll really ice the game.‘ We were unable to move the ball. Three downs and punt and VMI got the short field again. There are some concerns there. Don’t let the 54 points mislead you in terms of our offensive efficiency here Saturday night.“

—Rocco’s take on Gardner-Webb:

“I really felt three weeks ago that Gardner-Webb was going to be the team to beat. I really did. I just sensed that ... they had won a couple of good tight games. They won at VMI in a close game. They won at Western Carolina. Everything I was seeing and hearing was that they just might be the darkhorse team in this league to win it. I certainly have great respect and admiration for coach Patton and his team. I know they came into the season kind of thinking they were going to steal this thing this year. I really believe they thought that they might be the team to jump up and steal this conference championship. Well, it’s not going to happen now. But we expect to get their best shot. They had a tough defeat last week at Coastal in a very, very close football game. I’m sure they’re going to come back with a lot of passion and a lot of energy.“

OK, that’s it for now. I’ll have a few more notes tomorrow and FCS/Big South picks on Thursday.