Promo time first:

—Twitter feed can be found here.

—Look for a story in Wednesday’s dead tree News & Advance on Liberty’s senior class, which was Danny Rocco’s first recruiting class at LU. That class is already the winningest senior class in LU history.

—Thursday, I’ll have a story on former William Campbell standout Danny Broggin, who has turned into one of the Flames most versatile weapons.

—Wednesday on the blog, look for the weekly opponent Q&A with the Roanoke Times’ Katrina Waugh, who covers VMI (and the Salem Red Sox) for the paper.

Now the notes from today’s presser:

** I was a little surprised to see LB Ian Childress show up on crutches with an ice wrap on his knee. He apparently tweaked the MCL in his left knee during the Charleston Southern game two weeks ago. Then last week, on the second or third play of the game, he collided with LB Doncel Bolt knee-to-knee and took the worst end of it, leaving him with a slight fracture in the kneecap. He said he’ll be able to play Saturday, but the plan for the rest of the season is for him to miss practice Monday-Wednesday on game weeks and stay on crutches to try to help the knee heal and to keep swelling down.

** Other injuries—RB B.J. Hayes (shoulder) is doubtful; S Larry Claiborne (shoulder/neck) is probable and NG Greg Schuster (knee) is out Saturday. Schuster’s injury is the most serious of the three, as he tore either the MCL or ACL in his knee. If surgery is required, he’d be out three weeks at the least, pretty much putting him out for the season.

** Rocco has been impressed with the progress of QB Tommy Beecher, who is now completing more than 70 percent of his passes.

“It was my hope that he would be able to perform at that level with that type of efficiency,“ Rocco said. “It’s amazing. At practice every day, I am given a stat sheet from one of our young coaches, and it charts all the completions that our quarterbacks make during all of the drills—7 on 7, team drills. I look at the numbers every night, and I compare them, and what happened was Tommy most often is as high as 85, 88 percent completion. So as he was able to perform out here on Saturday (against Presbyterian), he protected the ball. He made good decisions. He distributed the ball to the open receivers. He was efficient with his throws.

“To me, it’s not how impressive the numbers are. I’d love to see him throw six touchdown passes in a game, but again, you’ve heard me say it. I don’t care if we run it in or throw it in, it doesn’t matter to me how we get those. ... I think he understands the offense, he understands the personnel, and he is distributing the football the way we like to see him do it.“

** TE Will Quarles has really begun to emerge in the last few games, and he told me Saturday his drop of a touchdown pass against North Carolina Central in Game 2 might have been the best thing to happen to him, because that play humbled him and forced him to refocus.

“I’m really proud of Will, and it hasn’t always been easy for Will,“ Rocco said. “He was a walk-on student athlete. I think Will was looking for some immediate gratification in terms of playing time or in terms of scholarship money. So often for these young people it’s hard to understand what the process is all about. Will and I sat in my office many a times, discussing his future, his value to the team and I just kept challenging him to work harder, get better and be patient. And here we are in his senior year and he’s playing well. He’s been blocking pretty well all year. Now he’s showing what we knew he could do in practice, and that’s catching the football.“

** Rocco’s take on the two major FCS polls. Liberty moved up seven spots in each poll this week:

“I’m a little surprised. I’m a voter in the coaches poll here for the first time and I put us in a position that I thought would put us substantially higher than we ended up. In theory, I was only about two spots off. I’m really pleased with that. I respect the coaches. Not that I don’t respect the media. I didn’t say that. But I respect the coaches in this process because they have an appreciation for how hard it is to go on the road and win a game. Or how hard it is to hold onto a streak. Or how hard it is to wear that target. What probably happened was a number of coaches were able to make sense out of a Coastal score, a Charleston Southern win on the road and a Presbyterian score, and they said that’s three pretty good weeks of work right there. They acknowledged that. On top of that, a bunch of people ahead of us lost. And that certainly factored in. But I would agree that my gut feeling would not have had us quite as high in the coaches poll, and I’m glad that we are. I think our football team is glad that we are too.“

** Off the subject of football for a moment. A couple of things worth noting in Liberty’s Olympic sports. (Or non-revenue, but words like ‘non-revenue’ will get you killed in Hancock. Ha.)

1. The Flames’ women’s soccer team had quite a turnaround this season after struggling through an abysmal year in Jessica Celi’s first year as head coach. The Flames were 3-12-2 last season and 2-6-1 in the Big South. Fast forward a year, and even after a rough start, Liberty managed to go 6-1-2 in conference play to win the league’s regular-season championship. Liberty is 8-1-2 in its last 11 matches and will open tournament play Thursday at 2 p.m. against Winthrop in Charleston, S.C. The Flames beat Winthrop 1-0 in overtime in Rock Hill in the regular season. During the 11-game run, Liberty has only allowed three goals and has pitched nine shutouts.

2. Liberty hosts a huge Big South volleyball match against UNC Asheville Friday night with first place in the league standings on the line. UNCA beat the Flames in Asheville in four games in the first meeting.

3. The NCAA cross country championships are about three weeks away, and Flames junior Sam Chelanga is hitting his stride right in time. He won the Big South championship last weekend in 23:50, more than a minute faster than teammate Evans Kigen. Chelanga, who finished second last year at the NCAAs to Oregon’s Galen Rupp, has to be considered a favorite to contend for the title. Liberty’s Josh McDougal won the national championship in 2007, out-dueling Rupp in the final mile to win a thrilling 10K race.