Some promos first:

- Twitter. Twitter. Twitter. Here.

- In today’s print News & Advance, a story on Mike Brown’s ability to quickly turn into an unquestioned leader on offense. One thing I failed to mention in the story: The three schools looking at Brown were Liberty, Richmond and William & Mary. Virginia sent a couple of form recruiting letters, but it had no real interest in the Charlottesville native.

- In Friday’s print edition, a story on Liberty’s punt game and how to try to control JMU’s ultra-talented returner, Scotty McGee.

- Mike Barber has a good read on Liberty in today’s Daily News Record.

THE PICKS:

LAST WEEK’S RECORD 27-0 (1.000)
SEASON RECORD 74-5 (.937)

BIG SOUTH GAMES (Home team in CAPS)

Let’s start with the Flames-Dukes game. I’m not going to duck this one ... I’m kind of in a lose-lose situation here. If I pick Liberty, everyone will just call me a blatant homer. JMU is, of course, the safe pick, so I could be seen as having no imagination if I just go with the Dukes. So let’s break this thing down a little bit:

Reasons to pick JMU

* This type of game is not a new thing for the Dukes. They play Top 10 teams regularly and perform well in those games. And Liberty’s only a Top 25 team, not a Top 10 team. JMU’s only loss last year against a Top 10 team was to Montana in the FCS semifinals, and that was a game in which star quarterback Rodney Landers went down with an injury. No matter the environment Saturday, the Dukes aren’t going to be intimidated one bit.

* Liberty is still a very young team. The win at Lafayette was nice, but the Flames are stepping to a different level of competition this week. The good thing: They’ve already played West Virginia. I keep hearing how JMU’s team speed will give Liberty problems, but that argument’s a non-starter. West Virginia has better team speed than James Madison. The Flames aren’t going to be shocked by the speed of the game. But how will a team filled with sophomores at the skill positions perform in a late-game situation against the best FCS opponent to step into Williams Stadium in seven years? That remains to be seen.

* Liberty is 0-12 all-time against Top 10 teams.

Reasons to pick Liberty

* Because no one is picking Liberty, outside of the Flames’ fan base. You won’t find one person in the country outside of that circle that thinks Liberty will win this game. Completely understandable, by the way. The Flames don’t traditionally play Top 10 opponents, so there’s a natural inclination to say they can’t compete. In reality, we just don’t know yet.

* Liberty’s coaching staff generally schemes well for excellent special teams players. It would be foolhardy to say Liberty will contain McGee, who has six career return TDs (three punt, three kickoff), but I think they’ll have some sort of plan in place to at least minimize the damage and keep McGee from breaking free for a touchdown.

* The Coastal factor. There is a parallel here. Night game, record crowd, a program hungry for national respect. That describes what JMU ran into in 2005 in Conway, S.C. And the Chanticleers pulled a stunning upset. Now that game has no bearing on this game. I only bring it up for the similarities of the situations. Liberty is treating this game like it’s December in Chattanooga, and the Flames have to. Win or lose, Saturday will be a program defining moment. With games against Richmond, Villanova, William & Mary, Massachusetts and Delaware left on the schedule, will JMU’s players truly believe Liberty is a threat? I have no way of knowing that. I know it took Liberty’s players about a half to realize North Carolina Central wasn’t going to just roll over a couple of weeks ago. So it’s a valid question.

With all that said ... #25 Liberty 27, #7 JMU 24. Gotta go out on a limb every once in a while. So we’ll go with the gut feeling. JMU jumps ahead early but doesn’t put Liberty away, and the Flames use a big turnover late to set up the winning field goal. Feel free to lambaste me if I’m wrong, JMU supporters.

The rest of the picks…
CHARLESTON SOUTHERN 24, North Greenville 10
#1 RICHMOND 51, VMI 14
#15 MASSACHUSETTS 36, Stony Brook 20
COASTAL CAROLINA 24, North Carolina A&T 14
THE CITADEL 44, Presbyterian 10

FCS TOP 25 GAMES
#2 VILLANOVA 38, Northeastern 0
#3 Northern Iowa 28, MISSOURI STATE 17
#4 Montana 41, NORTHERN ARIZONA 20 (Montana never, ever, ever, ever loses to NAU ... The Griz has won every matchup save for one since 1988.)
#5 WILLIAM & MARY 34, Delaware 28
#6 NEW HAMPSHIRE 49, Dartmouth 13
TULANE 20, #8 McNeese State 16
#9 SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 31, North Dakota State 23
#10 APPALACHIAN STATE 35, Samford 7
#11 Weber State 41, PORTLAND STATE 35
#12 CENTRAL ARKANSAS 50, Glenville State 10 (Quite the long trip for a WVIAC school to be making ...)
#13 ELON 38, Georgia Southern 17
#14 SOUTH CAROLINA STATE 56, Winston-Salem State 6
SAN JOSE STATE 31, #16 Cal Poly 14
#17 South Dakota State 27, ILLINOIS STATE 17
#18 Wofford 24, CHATTANOOGA 20 (Dangerous game for a banged up Terrier team ...)
SACRAMENTO STATE 28, #19 Eastern Washington 24
#20 Eastern Kentucky 27, MURRAY STATE 10
#22 Jacksonville State 38, NICHOLLS STATE 14
#23 TEXAS STATE 41, Texas Southern 7
#24 Eastern Illinois 30, AUSTIN PEAY 10

****

Some more quick-hit notes about the game:

* From 2004-09, JMU has the best conference record of any CAA team (33-7) and has more overall victories in that span (50) than any other league team.

* There are a few local ties worth noting on JMU’s two-deep. Jerald Brown, a backup left tackle, went to E.C. Glass. Peter Rose, who is redshirting, and Jon Rose, a reserve strong safety, both went to Amherst High School. Starting left tackle Theo Sherman went to Chatham and was one of our all-area players when he was a Cavaliers senior.

* Since 2004, JMU has only spent three weeks outside of the Sports Network’s Top 25.

* JMU couldn’t run the ball last week against VMI, but passing wasn’t an issue. The Dukes threw for 341 yards, the most by a JMU offense in eight years. The Dukes threw for 376 in an overtime loss at Villanova in 2001.

* Rockeed McCarter and Mike Caussin each racked up 100-plus receiving yards against VMI, the first time a JMU tandem had done that since 1998.

* One of the most dangerous aspects of JMU’s offense is the ability of quarterbacks Drew Dudzik and Justin Thorpe to make plays with their feet. The big question: Did Liberty learn anything from the West Virginia game, when Mountaineers quarterback Jarrett Brown scrambled for several huge gains?

“Contain, contain, contain,“ Liberty nose guard Asa Chapman said. “That’s something that we really need to do this week. We really need to stay in our lanes.“

The thing about Brown was that Liberty was able to pressure him. The Flames just couldn’t tackle him. And once he got outside of the tackle box, he was far quicker than the defensive linemen and outside linebackers chasing him. It’ll be a long night for the Flames if Dudzik and Thorpe get outside with any regularity.

* Liberty coach Danny Rocco noted that while JMU runs a two-quarterback system, it differs from the one the Flames will be utilizing Saturday.

“There are two very talented quarterbacks on each team,“ Rocco said. “Where I think it’s a little bit different is their two kids really function under the same gameplan. I’m sure as they get deeper and deeper into the season and the reps start playing out in a certain way, I’m sure we’ll see some nuances that are very much geared toward just Thorpe. But right now, it just appears that they rotate quarterbacks but they don’t necessarily change what they’re doing. Last week, with Mike Brown, we pretty much changed what we did in that football game. As we’ll play two quarterbacks this week in this game, we’ll have a variety of overlap, but we’ll have some specific things for each guy to do.

“I think each team is fortunate to have two kids you can win with. That is critical. ... They are more of a two, platoon quarterback system than we are. We’re not that. We haven’t been that.“

* Liberty offensive guard Bryan Mosier described what happened to the Flames’ run game against Lafayette last week. LU’s tailbacks combined for 31 yards on 13 carries last week.

“What they were doing is they moved their front quite a bit,“ Mosier said. “We ran an option play to the weak side, pretty much, which gave Mike Brown the chance to get one read to hand it off or keep it. When they move a lot, they kind of force that read for Mike to keep the ball. It was a good scheme for us last week. We knew they were going to move around. Last year when they played us, they moved around and wreaked a bunch of havoc. That’s one of the plays we really didn’t have in last year.“

* Receiver Chris Summers (foot) didn’t practice Wednesday but did some individual work. The boot was gone from his right foot and it looked to me like he was moving fine, so I assume he’ll be OK for Saturday.