Liberty looks to improve to 2-1 on the season and hand Morgan State its 9th consecutive loss dating back to 2012. Kickoff is scheduled for 7pm Saturday inside Williams Stadium.

Donald Hill-Eley

Morgan State head coach Donald Hill-Eley was nearly fired following a disastrous 3-8 season in 2012. In a bizarre story, he was accidentally forwarded an e-mail from a University official which laid out a timeline for finding a new coach. Hill-Eley has just one season remaining on his contract.

Morgan State has lost their first 2 games to Army and Robert Morris by a combined 33 points, and neither game was as close as the final score indicated. Against Army, the Bears trailed by a score of 21-0 and 28-6 before scoring late in the 4th quarter to make it 28-12. Against Robert Morris, it was 31-7 before Morgan State scored on a 44 yard touchdown pass on the final play of the game. The Bears have been outscored 49-12 in the 1st three quarters this season.

The Bears open up with their first 4 games on the road and will play a total of 8 road games this season. They have not won a game since October 6, 2012 when they defeated Savannah State. They haven’t won a nonconference road game since they defeated Division II Winston Salem State on September 20, 2008. They haven’t beaten a Division I nonconference opponent on the road since 2004. Morgan State has one winning season since 2003, when they went 6-5 during the 2009 season.

One area to watch where the Flames should have a noticeable advantage this weekend is in penalties. The Bears have been penalized 20 times in their first two games which places them 99th in the country; whereas, Liberty has only been penalized 9 times in the first two games which is good for 26th in the country.

FlamesNation was hopeful to have last year’s leading rusher Aldreakis Allen return this week following his suspension, but head coach Turner Gill ruled Allen out of the Morgan State game due to a “lower body injury.” Allen is hopeful to return next week against Richmond. This means Desmond Rice and Clifton Richardson will again get the majority of the carries against Morgan State.

QB Moses Skillon

Coach Gill says Morgan State has “some good athletes” and will give Liberty’s defense plenty of different looks including as many as 3 or 4 quarterbacks. Coach Gill describes their offense as “multiple, they will run some power, run some option, do the naked bootleg.” They also will run out of the wildcat formation. Lamont Brown III leads the Bears in rushing with 106 yards on 26 carries. Quarterback Moses Skillon leads Morgan State with 207 yards passing and 2 touchdowns. Both Brown and Skillon are redshirt-freshman.

Defensively, Morgan State’s base defense is a 3-4. This will be the first “odd” defense the Flames face this year meaning there will have to be some adjustments in Liberty’s blocking schemes, as coach Gill described during his Tuesday press conference. The Bears are giving up 29.5 points per game on defense, and allowing opponents to rush for nearly 250 yards per game.

Coach Gill described the keys to the game as being to “execute well early, protect the ball on offense, take the ball away on defense, and create great field position on special teams.”

Prediction

As long as Liberty is not overlooking Morgan State to next weekend’s showdown with Richmond and Danny Rocco looming, the Flames should dominate a struggling Morgan State team. Expect Liberty’s defense to shut down a Morgan State squad which is only scoring 13 points a game, and Liberty’s offense to wear down the Bears’ defense.

Liberty 35

Morgan State 6