[R i]

I was at the game.....

One observation on Mike having his career high rushing yards...


He has decent speed, average acceleration and okay strength. But He is so elusive to a tackle. He is extremely difficult to bring down, he avoids the hits (by making the defender mis their target, he only takes a fourth of the collision) and is constantly making people miss arm tackles (He moves his hips and wiggles his body while running to make these arm tackles tuff).

[Rooster Cogburn]

An interesting exchange from the press conference today from Lang's blog:

Liberty coach Danny Rocco spoke a bit Tuesday about external expectations (i.e., some felt Liberty should have crushed a 1-6 Presbyterian team last week). His rather honest, candid response to the question of whether Liberty tends to play down to the level of its competition:

“I’m not going to respond very favorably to that question,“ he said. “I don’t really care any more what other people think about what the outcome or the score of the game should be. I have been doing this for a long time, and I’ve been in this position here for five years. I went back and did a little bit of a history study here not too long ago on the open date and came to the realization that in the previous six years to our arrival here, the road record for Liberty University was 4 wins and 31 losses. I’ll say that again for those of you that aren’t real good at math—4 wins, and 31 losses in a six-year span.
(Interjection—under Rocco, Liberty is 13-11 away from Lynchburg, with two of the losses coming to FBS programs West Virginia and Wake Forest.)

“Winning on the road is hard to do. What we did up at VMI (in a 41-7 victory) was uncanny. That is not the norm. So at the end of the day, I felt again statistically is was 275 more yards than they had. Statistically it was more of a dominant performance. But at the end of the day, the dynamic we were able to experience—in a tight game, on the road at the half—the whole Yogi Berra deja vu all over again mentality, the fact that we were able to snap that and move forward, I thought really did more for my football team than going in there and going up 17-0 and being in the locker room up 17-0 and maybe appeasing our fan base in terms of what their expectations were. For me as the coach, you want to win and stay healthy. And we came out of the game healthy and we came out of the game with a win.“

See even Danny agrees that the previous coaches were bad HAHA!

[jcmanson]

Sounds like Danny was really taking a shot at "us."

[SuperJon]

And he had every right to.

[Rooster Cogburn]

I personally felt it was a good win based on the history at PC.

[Schfourteenteen]

An interesting exchange from the press conference today from Lang's blog:

But at the end of the day, the dynamic we were able to experience—in a tight game, on the road at the half—the whole Yogi Berra deja vu all over again mentality, the fact that we were able to snap that and move forward, I thought really did more for my football team than going in there and going up 17-0 and being in the locker room up 17-0 and maybe appeasing our fan base in terms of what their expectations were.

Danny - show us your ballot then. If you don't have us in the top 20, then you got something here. But don't turn in a ballot with Liberty in the top 15 and then tell fans WE expected too much from your team.

[Chris Lang]

Far be it for me to put words in Rocco's mouth ... but I think what he's getting at is the expectation that Liberty should win every Big South game by 50 points. It's just not that easy. He said that to me on Saturday. "You're not going to win every game 50-0." The coaches in this league are too good, they know their conference opponents inside and out and those sorts of blowouts -- especially on the road -- just aren't going to happen every week.

[Schfourteenteen]

Hey - schfourteenteen - you're an idiot. I did some research. I looked at the top 30 GPI and took note of every single game played at a team with a GPI of over 90. Yes they call this cupcakeland, but take a look at these numbers. Maybe this is what he's talking about.

Rank - Team - - - - Result - - - Cupcake - Cupcake Rank

10 Montana State W31-28(OT) Idaho State 94
19 Northern Arizona W32-7 Idaho State 94
26 Weber State W16-13 Idaho State 94
29 Liberty W41-7 VMI 90
29 Liberty W34-24 Presbyterian 111
12 Massachusetts W27-14 Towson 92
17 James Madison W17-13 Towson 92
29 Robert Morris W35-31 Sacred Heart 98
29 Robert Morris W35-14 St. Francis 108
15 SE Missouri State W28-13 Eastern Illinois 93
15 SE Missouri State W41-24 Austin Peay 97
4 Jacksonville State W28-23 Eastern Illinois 93
8 Wofford W34-23 Charleston Southern 101
18 Chattanooga W28-10 Citadel 96

The cupcake on average loses by 13 Points. Maybe he's not saying "We're not as good as everyone thinks" and instead saying "Good teams struggle at bad teams all the time, especially in conference play."

[Rooster Cogburn]

Nice work 14. I think that is exactly what he means. I think it is tough to win when you are the big guy because the little guy really gets up to beat the big dog.

[BigAl57]

forgot our opener with St. Francis

[R i]

any win is a good win.... however,

We should have beaten Presby by more than 11 points.That is not just our fans expectations, but most who follow FCS would expect the same thing. We did not play a good game, Rocco pointed out the two turnovers leading to a score, and the long run by the QB, and kept saying how we dominated the stat lines. This is like me when I get off the golf course, "Man I would have had a great round, if it were not for holes number 3,8, and 15, that i triple bogied".



The question was worded in a way that singled out our fan base having higher expectations. But it is not just our fans that expect a better showing from the team.

[jcmanson]

I can see both sides of the argument, but in the end Rocco's right - a win is a win.