Let’s get the promos out of the way first:

- In today’s print edition: Flames focusing on special teams.

- Friday in print, I’ll have a story on receiver Freddie Brown and his continued acclimation to the Flames football program after his transfer from South Carolina.

- Of course, game preview coverage Saturday, a blog post Saturday pregame and full game coverage from Easton in the Sunday N&A.

- I can’t promote the Twitter feed enough. Thanks for those who have followed the blog.

- I’ll be in Salem tonight for Game 3 of the Mills Cup series, for those inclined to read about baseball. The Hillcats need one more win over Salem to clinch the championship.

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THE PICKS:

LAST WEEK’S RECORD 20-2 (.909)
SEASON RECORD 47-5 (.904)

BIG SOUTH GAMES (HOME TEAMS IN CAPS):

Chattanooga 27, PRESBYTERIAN 23
NORTH CAROLINA STATE 40, Gardner-Webb 14
Liberty 24, LAFAYETTE 21
STONY BROOK 21, Brown 14
#7 JAMES MADISON 48, VMI 20
TOWSON 20, Coastal Carolina 10
SOUTH FLORIDA 58, Charleston Southern 6

TSN TOP 25
#1 RICHMOND 31, Hofstra 14
#2 Villanova 34, PENNSYLVANIA 21
#3 NORTHERN IOWA 40, St. Francis (Pa.) 12
#4 MONTANA 38, Portland State 7
#5 William & Mary 35, NORFOLK STATE 10
#8 McNEESE STATE 44, Savannah State 14
#9 SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 66, SW Baptist 0
WAKE FOREST 28, #11 Elon 17
OHIO 44, #12 Cal Poly 14
#13 WEBER STATE 37, Idaho State 22
WISCONSIN 28, #14 Wofford 14
#16 Central Arkansas 27, WESTERN KENTUCKY 17
#17 MASSACHUSETTS 40, Rhode Island 7
#18 SOUTH DAKOTA STATE 55, Indiana State 6
TCU 45, #19 Texas State 3
ALBANY 20, #20 Maine 17
#21 EASTERN WASHINGTON 34, Northern Colorado 30
#22 EASTERN KENTUCKY 31, Tennessee Tech 14
#23 HOLY CROSS 20, #25 Harvard 17
#24 Jacksonville State 24, ALABAMA A&M 16

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Now, here’s what Lafayette coach Frank Tavani, QB Rob Curley and DL Michael Phillips had to say about the upcoming Liberty game at the Leopards’ weekly press luncheon:

FRANK TAVANI

Recapping the Georgetown win

“It was a good win. Every time you win is a good win. It wasn’t a great win. It could have been a great win if we had executed in the second half the way we did in the first half. Of course, the head coach by rule is never satisfied. That being said, we wanted to be 1-0 in the league and 1-0 to start the season. I was pretty pleased overall with the operation. We had a couple of those first-game things happen, dumb penalties, those sorts of things, hurting ourselves. But we must do a better job obviously when we get in the red zone.

“Really uncharacteristic of Davis missing those three field goals, but these things do happen. We’ve got a lot of confidence in him. He’ll be fine. But there’s nine points off the board right there. But more importantly, as I said to him, that’s more of a product of us not finishing offensively. He’s an extension of the offense and when we don’t do our job and get stalled like we did in the red zone—a few times we were going backwards—we’re counting on him to get those points. When you see better opponents, certainly like we will this week and every week thereafter, that won’t be good enough. Those drives are going to have to be touchdown drives. We’re going to have to get into a little different mentality when we’re down there.”

“Our defense definitely did everything we expected to do. It was like, jeez, if they gained a yard, it was a breakdown. We expect the defense to shut them down all the time. To be honest with you, I knew we outplayed them in the first half. But when I looked at the halftime stats and saw they ran 24 plays for a total of 35 yards, that certainly said something about the first half. Then I saw we ran 44 plays for 260 or whatever, and that said something. Again, real balanced attack. Good ground game with the Four Horsemen in there getting the job done, and Rob and the wide receivers certainly, with Mark Layton stepping up and showing what we’ve all known he was capable of doing. And Mitch Bennett played pretty well too.”

“Greg Stripe, we were using for just about everything. Every special team, every specialty play, and running him in the receiver rotation. All in all, a good way to get started. It’s always good to get a league win coming out of the gate.”

What was the approach with the team going into last year’s Liberty game, when the Flames were ranked higher than they were this time around?

“It was an exciting week. You’re playing No. 14, at that time in the country. Certainly a big trip. Going on a charter flight. Going to a private entrance at the airport. Rolling the buses on the tarmac stuff. It just made it a real neat thing. In fact, I was thinking about a way I could get us flown in here. I just haven’t talked to Bruce about it yet. I thought I’d take a flight out and a flight back in, just to simulate flying, you know. But yeah, it was great. The one thing I didn’t anticipate was those 8,000 students sitting behind our bench. Watching that on film with that game with North Carolina Central, they were all in red. It was like a sea of red t-shirts back there. I think it just helped fire us up. I know one thing, I learned some new bad language down there from some of those people.”

“That’s hard to believe? Not quite. Not everybody’s buying in.”

How do you compare last year’s Liberty team to this year’s Liberty team?

“They’re very similar. I’m very impressed, as you’d expect from a solid, scholarship program that puts and emphasis on football. They’ve got great-looking athletes. Size. Strength. Good athletes. They’ve got a few special guys running around, like they did last year. That back was as good as anybody. But now I see they’ve got three guys, including a freshman, that look very, very good. So very similar. You’ve got a quarterback that started three games at South Carolina. I mean, that’s pretty impressive. Then they bring in the other guy, who they have at receiver. I’m not sure where I’d rather have him. I think I’d rather have him at receiver because you’ve got better control of him than when he’s taking that snap every time. Same kind of challenge. We’ll have to rise up and play our best game today, certainly, in a short season, and as good a game as probably you’re going to have to play all year.”

Will you do something scheme-wise against Liberty that you might not do against somebody you might match up better with?

“You certainly have to look at the strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your opponent from week to week to see where you might gain something. Last year, we did some things formationally and put ourselves in position to gain success on certain plays. Our guys with speed and everything kind of took it from there. We had opportunities last year and we took advantage of them. We’ll have to do the same thing.”

“How much we’ll change? The gameplan, I don’t think we’re doing anything drastically different. Our gameplan against a team like that with those athletes, you’d like to control the ball, keep the time running and keep your defense off the field as much as possible and not put yourself in too many of those situations where those kinds of big plays are going to happen. When you have those kinds of athletes on the football field—on both sides—there’s going to be breaks in the game. Particularly in the kicking game that’s certainly going to make a difference. The kicking game was a huge part of that game last year. The first punt, their guy touches it, we get it with great field position then, boom, touchdown, momentum. A couple of their drives, they went up and down the field like we weren’t even there. That’s going to go back and forth, and I think it’s going to be an exciting football game. I think our kids are pumped up about it. Hey, let‘s go. That‘s why you play. Somebody said, ‘Why are you playing them?’ They‘re a Top 25 team. Why wouldn‘t you be playing them?”

Thoughts on Liberty’s growing program

“I’ve made some notes in my next meeting with Bruce, that we ought to start taking (Danny Rocco’s) NFL approach. You know, he made some very good points. It’s interesting he talks that way. But let’s be honest. It’s a big-time operation. They were left millions to do it this way. They’re putting 20,000 more seats in that stadium. This is a program that’s going to the next level. Let’s face it. You’re not spending the kind of money and doing the things they’re doing without doing that. But, you know, they do a great job. It’s a great challenge to be able to have the opportunity to be able to play a football team like that. That was a great trip, a great experience for our kids. So will this game. Every year you want to be able to play games like that. It’s kind of that next step, playing someone who’s at a little bit bigger level in terms of full scholarships and an emphasis on football. But last I checked, you’ve got to put your equipment on the same way, lace up your shoes, come out and block, tackle and make football plays.”

On game planning for two different types of quarterbacks?

“Beecher’s a more traditional guy. Great, strong-armed throwing kid. The other guy is a really great athlete who certainly can throw. But I think they’re looking to do other things when he’s in there. He really reminds me of that quarterback that Richmond had. They even wear the same number. He’s a great athlete.”

DL MIKE PHILLIPS

This isn’t a league game, but it’s a game against a top-25 team. How do you prepare for that emotionally?

“Any time you get to play a big-time program, a team like Liberty, you get excited. They’re a Top 25 team. They’ve won 9, 10 games each of the last three seasons. They’re going to come up hungry to play us and act upon what happened last season. That’s in the past. We’re ready for that challenge. It’s just one of those things where you get ready to go.”

What were your expectations heading into the year, and were you at all surprised with the success you‘ve had?

“The success? No. I’ve worked real hard and I’ve set little goals for myself each week, things I want to accomplish at game time. When I get the chance, the opportunity, I try to make the most of it. Everything just kind of worked into place. It happened that I got to make the plays I did in the times of the game they happened.”

(Phillips forced two fumbles, recovered one and had two tackles for loss and a sack last week against Georgetown.)

QB ROB CURLEY

On Georgetown

“They ran a lot of Cover 3, a three-deep shell, and a lot of time they blitzed us, you know, man blitz, so there was man coverage everywhere. In that situation, I’m just looking for a matchup. Who’s hot against what corner? How far is the linebacker? Mark (Layton) got an opportunity and definitely came through.”

How much leeway do you and Layton have on switching that pattern up?

“It’s pretty exact. Most of the stuff we hit them with last week was timing stuff. A couple of things where they were playing off coverage, we’d do something different. If they’re in press, we’ll do something else. A lot of that stuff is timed up in practice. We work all week on that exact moment, getting the ball off, and him expecting it as soon as his head turns, stuff like that.”

This isn’t a league game, but it’s a game against a top-25 team. How do you prepare for that emotionally?

“One of the things we really preached all through summer camp and all through the offseason is going 11-0, at the end of the day. That would be something we’d love to accomplish, and to do that, we have to go week by week. We’re 1-0 right now. We played one championship game already. This is our second championship game, for all of our goals, you know, not just the league. The team has a pretty good mindset going into these games, and especially against Liberty. They’re a big-time team. They’re always ranked. And we escaped there last year with a pretty big win. So I’m sure they’re going to be fired up. We definitely have to bring our A game. We can’t really afford to be slacking, or anything like that.”

Memories from last year’s game

“The biggest thing that sticks out in my head was their crowd. I’ve been in a Lehigh-Lafayette game before—excuse me, a Lafayette-Lehigh game before—but that was a pretty cool atmosphere down there. Taking the flight down was cool. I remember how big their D line was. They had some athletes that were big and could definitely run around. So I think that’s going to be a challenge for us. But again, they’re a big-time program, and they’re going to have athletes. But if we can go out and do what we need to do from our point, we can be successful.”