Big South Basketball Media Day
The Big South held their annual basketball media day festivities this past Monday. The Flames were picked to finish last while High Point was picked as the league favorite. High Point’s John Brown was again picked as the Preseason Big South Player of the Year.

The Lady Flames were picked to defend the Big South women’s basketball crown. This is the 8th straight and 18th time in the last 19 years that Liberty was picked as the preseason favorite to win the Big South Conference title. Ashley Rininger was named Big South Preseason Player of the Year while Sadalia Ellis was named to the 2nd team preseason all-conference squad. 

KenPom Projections
Ken Pomeroy has released his season projections for this season, and he has the Flames projected to finish 9-19 overall and 5-13 in Big South play. He picked Coastal Carolina to finish in 1st place in the Big South at 13-5 with Liberty closely behind Presbyterian (6-12) for 10th place. 

Photo courtesy: BigSouthSports.com

CSU vs Coastal
With Liberty on a bye, you may have time to focus on other college football games. Well, there’s a big one in the Big South this weekend. #1 Coastal Carolina (7-0, 2-0) plays at #19 Charleston Southern (6-1, 3-0) Saturday at 7pm in a game that can be seen on the American Sports Network. The winner of this game will have a leg up on the Big South’s automatic bid to the 2015 FCS Playoffs. Coastal defeated Charleston Southern last year in Conway, 43-22. 

Liberty to play at Coastal next year
With Coastal Carolina moving to the Sun Belt, no Big South football team is required to play the Chanticleers in 2016. It sounds like most of the Big South teams have backed out of the game, while Ryan Young of the Sun News reports Liberty will play in Conway as originally scheduled. The game was originally scheduled for November 19th, no word yet if the same date will remain.

North Texas Drops LU from Schedule
The North Texas Mean Green announced their 2016 non-conference football schedule this week, and Liberty is nowhere to be found on it. The Flames were originally scheduled to play at North Texas on September 17th, 2016, but at some point the Mean Green scheduled a game with Florida for that date. North Texas has replaced the Liberty game with a matchup against Bethune-Cookman on September 10th. This leaves the Flames with two openings on its 2016 schedule, a schedule which includes a road game to Virginia Tech, and home games against Jacksonville and Robert Morris. Liberty has made a habit of facing 2 FBS teams the past several seasons, but it is unknown if another FBS school will replace North Texas, who competes in the Conference-USA.

Other football notes:

  • Following the Kennesaw State game, Liberty quarterback Josh Woodrum has become the Flames’ career passing yards leader with 9,614, surpassing a 20+ year record previously held by Robby Justino. With 3 games left this season, Woodrum needs just 155 passing yards to become the Big South’s all-time career passing yards leader.
  • Wide receiver Darrin Peterson tied a career high 3 touchdown receptions against KSU, bringing him to 26 career touchdown receptions, a mark that ties Chris Summers for Liberty’s all-time record.
  • We mentioned this last week, but it bears repeating as the calendar turns to November. The Flames have been very good in the month of November under Coach Gill. In his 3 seasons, Liberty is 11-1 in November with 4 wins over ranked teams (#6 Stony Brook, #16 Charleston Southern, #1 Coastal Carolina, #15 James Madison). This season, the Flames have 3 games in the month of November including 2 against teams currently ranked in the top 25 (#1 Coastal Carolina, #19 Charleston Southern).

Photo courtesy: Fansided.com

Flames in the NFL update
Rashad Jennings had 5 carries for 19 yards in the Giants’ win over the Cowboys, 27-20. Walt Aikens did not record any stats in the Miami Dolphins’ rout of the Houston Texans, 44-26. Aikens and the Dolphins also played Thursday night against the Patriots. He had 4 tackles in the 36-7 loss.

Other Sports update
Your weekly non-football Fall sports update:

  • The men’s soccer team lost to UNC-Asheville last Saturday and tied Longwood, 3-3 in double overtime, on Tuesday. The Flames are 1-5-1 in conference play with 2 matches left in the regular season.
  • The women’s soccer team captured its 2nd straight Big South regular-season championship by defeating Longwood Tuesday night. The Lady Flames open conference tournament play November 1st by hosting 8 seed Winthrop. The semifinals and finals will be held in Greensboro, North Carolina.
  • The women’s field hockey team beat UMass Lowell and Providence in the trip to the northeast last weekend. The Lady Flames dropped a 7-1 contest to #3 North Carolina Thursday afternoon. Liberty will face #4 Duke in Lynchburg on Saturday.
  • The women’s volleyball team defeated Presbyterian and Winthrop this week to improve to 7-2 in Big South play this season. The Lady Flames host Radford Friday night.
  • The men and women’s cross country teams will compete for the Big South Championship this weekend.

FlameFans thread of the week
This week’s FlameFans thread of the week is Prediction for our fresh-new Flames this season as we take a look at the 2015-16 men’s basketball team and what its season may look like.