Tuesday Liberty football notes, 8/30
Back to the grind of game week as Liberty’s opener against North Carolina State in Raleigh is only four days away now.
Let’s start with the big news, which will be part of a story in tomorrow’s News & Advance.
Flames defensive tackle Asa Chapman, an All-America candidate, has been suspended indefinitely after his arrest on two drug charges last Friday. Chapman was arrested that night after being pulled over by Lynchburg Police in a traffic stop. He was charged with one count of misdemeanor marijuana possession and one count of felony possession of cocaine. According to court records, the charges were filed in Lynchburg General District Court on Tuesday morning. His arraignment hearing is scheduled for Sept. 12. Liberty will play twice before the hearing date—Saturday at N.C. State and Sept. 10 at home against Robert Morris.
Flames coach Danny Rocco told me this after practice on Tuesday:
“I’m going to suspend him indefinitely for now, really for conduct detrimental to the team and conduct unbecoming of an LU student-athlete. I’m certainly very hopeful as we go through the due process here and as we wait on the court date that we will be in a position to strongly reconsider reinstatement. But it will not be until we have sufficient information that, in our opinion, would merit that response.”
The full story on Chapman’s suspension will run in Wednesday’s News & Advance.
Now to the injury news:
—The Flames should be close to 100 percent health-wise for Saturday’s game in Raleigh. Wide receiver Pat Kelly tweaked his MCL practice last Saturday, but he was back out on Tuesday working and should be ready to go. Wide receiver Chris Summers has been practicing in a red no-contact jersey for the last week or so.
“Chris is looking really good out there in terms of his ability to run and catch,“ Rocco said. “It’s just going to be a matter of his willingness and ability to take some hits and to deliver some hits. That’s his next step in his preparation to play this weekend.“
The only game-time decision will be fullback Peter Gagliardi, who has been battling a sore hamstring. Reserve offensive lineman Kevin Widener remains out with a torn MCL. He’ll miss at least the next three weeks.
—One of the things Rocco did in preparation for this week’s game at North Carolina State is to look back at the video of the Flames’ last game against a BCS conference opponent in 2008 at West Virginia.
“It’s a similar kind of opponent in a lot of ways,“ Rocco said. “There were a lot of things I thought were of value. I watched that game looking for a lot of different things. We were able to keep the crowd out of the game and gain some momentum. How was our team speed? We were physical enough? How was the kicking game? Not that I had forgotten, but Mike Brown was sensational in that game. It was play after play after play. As Mike finishes his career here, that will certainly be a game people go back and look as they try to make some sense out of how Mike played in big games. That was the best opponent we’ve played to date.“
—Mike Glennon, the younger brother of former Virginia Tech quarterback Sean Glennon, will be making his first start for the Wolfpack Saturday. For the Flames, getting early pressure on Glennon will be key, a task that became a little bit more difficult with the news of Chapman’s suspension.
“There’s going to be a lot of value in that,“ Rocco said. “There’s more value in just not allowing Glennon to get a bead on what we’re in. I think there’s more value in that than just getting in there and hitting him and sacking him, per se. Obviously, those would be good things for us. Just because we’re not hitting him or sacking him, that may not mean we’re not being effective with what we’re trying to do. I think the game looks to him on Saturday like it looked to him all week long in practice, we’re going to be in trouble. Because he’s going to have the ability to go back there, recognize his coverage, go through the reads and make his throws. If things are a little different, if things don’t look quite exactly the way they did on film a year ago, it’s not what the scout team did this week, just presenting some different coverages, different tweaks into our system, then he could be a little more indecisive. That’s really what you’d hope to do. You want the first-time starter to be a little more indecisive.“
—Rocco noted Tuesday that three true freshmen will play this season—offensive lineman Grant Jones, running back Desmond Rice and safety Andrew Jauch. Rice and Jauch were greyshirts who were on campus but didn’t play or practice last season. They’ll still have five years to play four seasons. Jones was the biggest name in the 2011 recruiting class, and he’ll fit into the two-deep rotation on the offensive line. Rice and Jauch will both play key roles on special teams in Liberty’s kicking game.
—Just got an e-mail from the ACC with quotes from everybody’s weekly press conference, including some from North Carolina State coach Tom O’Brien. Some of the highlights:
* “Going against Liberty, this is coach Rocco’s sixth season, they’ve been conference champions the last four years. Offensively they return a lot of good skill people, they have an All-American quarterback and an All-American wide receiver. Their offense is centered around their quarterback. Last year when they upset Ball State I think he had the ball 55 out of the 66 plays they ran. Everything goes through him. Sometimes he plays wide out; they’ll bring in the back-up quarterback and he’ll go to wide out. They have eight starters back on offense so it’s going to be a tough challenge for our defense. Defensively, they return five starters, they have a mammoth nose guard, 6-4 380 lbs, who’s back in the middle for them. The thing with playing Liberty is that defensively they’re talking about playing transfers from Illinois, South Florida, Virginia, Georgia Tech and Pitt. There’s a lot of moving parts that you’re not sure who they’re going to be. They return an All-American kicker, their punter is a senior; there’s a lot of experience on this football team. Two years ago they went to West Virginia and it was a 34-20 game, last year they went to play Ball State and beat them up there. It’ll be a good football team coming in here and we’ll have to be ready for the challenge.“
* O’Brien on Glennon: “I think more importantly he’s excited about the opportunity and you know I just reminded him to relax. I think I relayed some of the story about Nate Irving last year in his first opportunity on the field Western Carolina went right down the field and scored on us and Nate didn’t do one thing right. He was running around the field like he was never coached or anything because he was so excited and hyped to be out there that we had to calm him down and get him to play the defense. I kind of relayed that story to Mike and said ‘it’s not about you.’ The last sign the team sees as they walk out of the locker room is that individuals play the game but teams win championships. It’s still a team thing, he has to operate within the concept of the offense, he can’t win it himself and he won’t be asked to win it himself. He’s going to be asked to executed the offense and make sure we’re headed the right direction and that he throws the ball to the right guy at the right time. ... I think every quarterback goes through scrutiny. He’s ready. His brother has been through it and I think that gives him a huge advantage. He’s seen his brother perform in a situation at Virginia Tech and he’s been around the game, as I said I think he’s really excited and looking forward to the opportunity to prove his ability.“
* On how to prepare for an FCS opponent: “As we prepare each and every week, it doesn’t matter what jersey or what the name is on their jersey, we’re going to prepare like we’re playing in the ACC Championship each and every week. That’s how we prepare and that’s the only way we’ve ever coached. Each year someone in September gets upset, and we just have to make sure that we don’t add to that total.”
—Look for a feature on running back Aldreakis Allen in Thursday’s print News & Advance, plus more online notes on the blog. I’ll have a national FCS notebook Friday and all of the game preview coverage on Saturday.
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