A couple of quick housekeeping items:

* Twitter. You know you want it. Follow the blog here if you’re not already signed up.

* The betting line, for those who are so inclined to worry about such thing, for Saturday’s Liberty-West Virginia game is pretty large—the Mountaineers are 32-point favorites. (You’d know this if you were following the Twitter feed ... just sayin’ ... OK, enough self promo about that.)

* That’s nothing compared to the Florida-Charleston Southern line, which has the Gators as a 62-point favorite. Let’s put that in perspective. The Bucs could lose by EIGHT TOUCHDOWNS AND A FIELD GOAL and still cover the spread. Wacky stuff.

* In tomorrow’s News & Advance print edition: A quick read on Tommy Beecher getting a second chance as a Division I starter.

* Coming Thursday: A feature on former Liberty High School standout Ian Childress, and he how got a fifth-year of eligibility.

* Coming Friday: A quick read on Danny Rocco and his relationship with West Virginia University.

* And coming tomorrow on the blog, five questions with Mike Casazza, the West Virginia beat writer for the Charleston Daily Mail.

(A quick aside—I’ve had John Denver‘s “Country Roads” stuck in my head all day.)

Now, for some more meaty bullet-point notes:

* INJURY REPORT: Not much to see here, as everyone on Liberty’s two-deep is projected to play Saturday at WVU. Center Aaron Lundy is still expected to be out for at least four more weeks as he rehabs his broken right foot, but that was a injury that occurred in the first week or so of practice. Rocco said all of the muscle pulls, etc., seemingly have healed. Things can change in the next two days of practice, so stay tuned on the injury front.

* DEPTH CHART: No changes from what was released last week.

* Rocco has been upbeat publicly about the Flames’ prospects for the 2009 season, even though Liberty lost just about every key skill player on offense from a team that won 10 games a year ago.

“First and foremost, I am very excited about this group,“ Rocco said. “I see a lot of young talent in this group, and I certainly can envision this football team being a very good football team. I think that’s the first reason why I’ve been able to maintain a very positive outlook and very upbeat approach. Secondly, I consider that to be a big part of my job. A big part of being the head football coach is to continue to set the standard and present an image that is prepared and ready, and believing in his program. I think those two things have allowed us to remain confident about this upcoming season.“

In Rocco’s first season, the Flames started the year 3-5 and 0-2 in the Big South. Since then, Liberty is 21-5 and 12-0 in conference play.

“When you look at that, you’re looking at a program that has learned how to win,“ Rocco said. “When you arrive at that position, or that place in athletics, you have some reason to have confidence. I say that all the time. Confidence is a function of demonstrated performance. Well we have performed well and at a high level. To me, there are a lot of reasons to feel optimistic and positive about this game and our upcoming season.“

* Question of the day: How in the heck do you stop Noel Devine, WVU’s standout tailback?

“I think when you talk about playing against players like this, at this talent level, you have to talk about playing team defense,“ Rocco said. “And the responsibility that everybody has on each and every play. You have to talk about the importance of pursuit, and when I talk about pursuit, I always talk about two phases—pursuit effort and angles. Are you really in the right proper angle on pursuit, and are you giving necessary effort on pursuit? I talk about gang-tackling when you play a player of his caliber. He’s a hard guy to simulate in practice.“

* Is there a “best” time to play an FBS school, if you’re an FCS school? If so, what is that time? In Week 1? After a bye week early in the season? How about late in the year?

“The answer would be yes,“ to playing an FBS opponent in Week 1, Rocco said. “As you get into the season, you have open dates scheduled, and sometimes having an open date scheduled before a game like this could be a good thing for your preparation. For the most part, in any opening game, there are always questions for both teams taking the field. There are personnel changes. There are issues and concerns in the kicking game, and there are guys on both teams who will be getting their first real taste of full-time action. So you just don’t know. There are more variables, probably, in the opening game. That being the case, it’s certainly not the worst time to play them. As you get deeper and deeper into the season, as teams start to get banged up a bit, that would be in their favor as they have more scholarship athletes and they have fewer scholarship athletes. We’re pretty much going into the game at full strength, and I don’t know if that would be the case in Week 9, 10 or 11.“

* WR Chris Summers has had an outstanding training camp. Now the big question: Is the talented sophomore ready to emerge as a breakout receiver?

“I sure hope so. I certainly have reason to believe that he is,“ Rocco said. “I mentioned demonstrated performance again. He’s done everything you need to see a receiver to do. He’s made all of the catches. He’s made all of the runs. He’s run all of the routes. He’s the complete package. Now doing is under the lights and doing it with consistency is what this season is all about. I do know that Chris takes his performance very seriously. Chris is a pretty serious kid. I admire that about him. It’s about business. His expectations for himself are every bit as high as mine are for him. It is important that he gets off to a good start and can become a real weapon for us this season.“

* The largest crowd Liberty has ever played in front of was 40,000 at Connecticut in 2005. WVU is expecting 60,000 fans Saturday.

Now, a few quick notes from today’s Big South coaches teleconference:

* Gardner-Webb quarterback Stan Doolittle has waited for his turn to start on a full-time basis for three years now. With Devin Campbell gone, the job is Doolittle’s alone. The two spent a lot of time shuffling in and out of the lineup in recent years. The Bulldogs open their season Saturday against Division II Mars Hill.

“It was almost like Stan was breaking over Devin’s shoulder at times,“ GWU coach Steve Patton said. “Stan know it’s his time. He knows he’s got the opportunity and he needs to make the best of it. I left a staff meeting this morning, and he’s over there watching film. He’s very conscientious.“

* I ran into VMI’s Ben Brandt, a Jefferson Forest graduate, a couple of weeks ago over at Gold’s Gym, and Brandt told me that he’s switched back to defense after spending a year on the offensive line for the Keydets. Through his offseason work, Brandt lost about 20-25 pounds to get lighter and quicker for his duties as a defensive end.

“He certainly prefers to play defense,“ VMI coach Sparky Woods said. “We had to move him there last year just because of how thin we were in our numbers. (Moving him back) is an indication that we do have more depth. I think he brings that same toughness back to defense. He agreed a year ago to do this if we agreed to move him back to defense. It was the right thing to do then, and moving him was the right thing to do know. He’s a much better fit for us on the defensive line, although I don’t know what we would have done without him as an offensive lineman last year.“

* Interesting nugget from Presbyterian coach Harold Nichols: Sixty-one of the 105 players on Presbyterian’s team are either freshmen or redshirt freshmen.

* Charleston Southern coach Jay Mills spent much of the call fielding questions about what exactly CSU gains out of the matchup with Florida. His responses—the players get the experience of playing in front of 90,000 fans, and CSU gets a tidy paycheck for the soiree. Plus, it’s an educational experience and gives the university an added level of national exposure. Mills ran late for the conference call because he was being interviewed on ESPN’s “First Take.“ (It’ll always be “Cold Pizza” to me.)

Someone asked Mills if the 62-point betting line added incentive for his team to perform Saturday.

“I don’t think you can add incentive or attention to his ballgame,“ he said. “The thing about the point spread, we don’t focus on it. We don’t dwell on it. Those things stir interest. The thing I love about this game … it’s about opportunity. Our country is about opportunity. We were founded on a bunch of underdogs many years ago. This is still college sports. Everybody gets a chance to realize dreams. This is a one-time thing for the young men in our program.“

Another reporter asked Mills if he would understand if Florida didn’t “call off the dogs,“ until the second half Saturday. Mills, understandably, seemed a bit irritated by this line of questioning. But he pushed on.

“I learned a long time ago, you can only coach one team—your team,“ he said. “You can’t worry about officials or the other team. You can only control what you do.“