[paradox]

I still believe Brock is the barometer of our team's success this year. If he can regain his confidence (which from a distance appears to be the problem) then I can see us really putting things together nicely the rest of the way. But perhaps Landis getting some extra time behind center will shake things up enough that Brock comes back on the field more focused. But you have to be careful dealing with the psyche of a QB.

But my biggest concern is our total inability to stop the pass. This has gone from a slight concern to an epidemic in the past two weeks. We have guys back there who have performed in the past but they are completely ineffective right now. I'm not sure if it is the schemes or the personnel at this point. It could be both. But until we find a way to stop the pass you can bet we're going to be seeing a steady diet of it for the next few weeks.

It's true, problems exist on both sides of the ball--but Brock is clearly not the answer on offense. At this stage, it wouldn't be fair to the team if we didn't make the move.

[wake2cb]

Well if you know Brock or have even held a conversation with him....He thinks he is invincible.

He talks and acts like he is the best. I can only pray that he finds some humble pie after the whooping we took this past week.

Brock is not the sole person holding the team back....I just did not see any motivation at all...from anyone.

[Cider Jim]

Lang's blog comments on the game at halftime:

Liberty is getting embarrassed here, probably for the first time in the Danny Rocco era.

* Kent Hicks is a liability for this team. Physically, he matches up with Elon receiver Terrell Hudgins, who is 6-foot-2. But Rocco doesn’t seem to trust Hicks, leaving the 5-9 Pat Calvary on Hudgins instead. It’s a huge mismatch...Calvary has no chance.

* Brock Smith looks awful. He’s playing with no confidence. He’s overthrowing receivers...The Flames have completely abandoned the run. Is Spencer Landis the answer? Mike Brown? Who knows. But Smith is 7-for-20 for 62 yards at halftime, and he has no command of this offense whatsoever.

* The defense again has been shredded. Elon...is starting a true freshman at quarterback, one who has had enough time to pour a Guinness in the backfield and wait for the head to settle before taking a sip

http://nasports.wordpress.com/

[FlamingChick]

From this morning'g N&A article....

Elon quarterback Scott Riddle completed 33 of 39 passes for 368 yards and threw four touchdowns, but he wouldn't give himself an "A" grade for the performance. "I still had six incompletions and an interception," Riddle said. "I have to take better care of the ball." ?

I like this kid. He has a great game, leads his team to the win, and gives himself a hard time about 6 incompletions--with 85% of his passes completed? Talk about humble. He'll go far in this game. His parents must be so proud...

http://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Sate ... th=!sports

[Cider Jim]

Also from today's paper are a few quotes from Coach Rocco:

It's an embarrassment to our defense the way we performed today. That's all my fault...Right now we don't have a good football team. That's the bottom line.

Coach Rocco's comments about back-up QB Landis:

He's a little more mobile...We'll take a look at him this week and make a decision.

[jcmanson]

I put this loss on 2 things:

1. Our team showed no heart following last week. They came out and acted like they didn't care to win or want to win. I don't know if this is a hangover from last week or not. I hope that's what it is, but who knows. They showed no will to win. This must change.

2. The coaching staff. Noone on here seems to admit it, but we got SEVERELY outcoached. They did the exact same thing W&M did on offense, and we looked like we didn't learn anything from that game. The QB had all day to throw, our secondary allowed their receivers to catch the ball. Then we couldn't make a tackle and they would run for 10 yards. I put that on the coaching staff. You have to be able to adjust. You can say our defense is the cover 2 and that's what we're going to run, but that's how you lose. People are going to eat us alive.

Frankly, this was embarassing. I rushed to get there as quick as possible, for what? The team stayed in Lynchburg, the fans should have as well.

[TDDance234]

Elon is a class act.

Good luck the rest of the way.

Yeah, class act when they were playing Hells Bells as we were coming on to the field.

[Stevev]

After reading all of these posts I kind of wonder if LU will ever be the team that they intend to be in the future and even this year. I wouldn't think that it would take 4 years to turn things around. Elon's Lembo did it in 2. I know that we were 1-10 2 years ago but there seems to be a lot of things going on that have me worried about the future. One of them is coaching. Is this coaching staff overhyped or maybe they are the ones overhyping the players. During summer camp it seemed to be that way. I hate to put so much emphasise on one game or write them off but things do not look good this year unless changes are made in the weak areas such as QB, DL, and DB's, etc. Many things are on my mind that I think could contribute to the team's problems but if I mentioned them that might stir up trouble and might be off topic and besides I am not residing in Lynchburg so I sometimes don't know truely what is going on behind the scenes.

Another issue is all of these 1A transfers being brought in that were supposed to speed up the turnaround process. Are these guys just way too overhyped or are the Karcher holdovers not doing it. If that is the case then the turnaround process could take a long time and I am not talking about 2 years. Another thing that worries me is the lack of playing time for Rocco's freshmen. Could it be they are not ready.

[jcmanson]

It will take us until at least next year to be able to determine how good this coaching staff is in all aspects of the game. Once alot of these "Karcher holdovers" and transfers use up their eligibility this year, we will begin to see how "good" Rocco's recruits really are. Next year Rocco's guys will take up most of the 2 deep. It's not time to "jump ship" or anything like that. This team was just way overhyped. We may have had something to do with that.

Hopefully, we will be able to regroup and win the Big South. I know it's just the Big South, but we've never won it before. That's the first step in making it to the next level. You must be able to win your conference.

[Stevev]

I see what you are saying and there is some truth to it. I guess with the improvements we made on the field last year (even with the weak schedule and all) and with all of the 1A transfers coming in and key players coming back I just expected more out of them and expected them to get to that next level but maybe I and everyone else here expected too much. I would tend to think that the stadium improvements/additions and added coverage (on the web) had some influence there too. And yes I expected more than just winning the Big South but I guess you take what you can get at this point in time Right now it looks like the "Same ol' Liberty football" that has plagued us for the last 10 years. It's like nothing ever changes.

[El Scorcho]

After reading all of these posts I kind of wonder if LU will ever be the team that they intend to be in the future and even this year. I wouldn't think that it would take 4 years to turn things around. Elon's Lembo did it in 2. I know that we were 1-10 2 years ago but there seems to be a lot of things going on that have me worried about the future. One of them is coaching. Is this coaching staff overhyped or maybe they are the ones overhyping the players. During summer camp it seemed to be that way. I hate to put so much emphasise on one game or write them off but things do not look good this year unless changes are made in the weak areas such as QB, DL, and DB's, etc. Many things are on my mind that I think could contribute to the team's problems but if I mentioned them that might stir up trouble and might be off topic and besides I am not residing in Lynchburg so I sometimes don't know truely what is going on behind the scenes.

Another issue is all of these 1A transfers being brought in that were supposed to speed up the turnaround process. Are these guys just way too overhyped or are the Karcher holdovers not doing it. If that is the case then the turnaround process could take a long time and I am not talking about 2 years. Another thing that worries me is the lack of playing time for Rocco's freshmen. Could it be they are not ready.

I see what you are saying and there is some truth to it. I guess with the improvements we made on the field last year (even with the weak schedule and all) and with all of the 1A transfers coming in and key players coming back I just expected more out of them and expected them to get to that next level but maybe I and everyone else here expected too much. I would tend to think that the stadium improvements/additions and added coverage (on the web) had some influence there too. And yes I expected more than just winning the Big South but I guess you take what you can get at this point in time Right now it looks like the "Same ol' Liberty football" that has plagued us for the last 10 years. It's like nothing ever changes.

You are absolutely ridiculous every time you post.

[paradox]

I put this loss on 2 things:

1. Our team showed no heart following last week. They came out and acted like they didn't care to win or want to win. I don't know if this is a hangover from last week or not. I hope that's what it is, but who knows. They showed no will to win. This must change.

2. The coaching staff. Noone on here seems to admit it, but we got SEVERELY outcoached. They did the exact same thing W&M did on offense, and we looked like we didn't learn anything from that game. The QB had all day to throw, our secondary allowed their receivers to catch the ball. Then we couldn't make a tackle and they would run for 10 yards. I put that on the coaching staff. You have to be able to adjust. You can say our defense is the cover 2 and that's what we're going to run, but that's how you lose. People are going to eat us alive.

Frankly, this was embarassing. I rushed to get there as quick as possible, for what? The team stayed in Lynchburg, the fans should have as well.

Personally, I think that this team is losing heart because they know that they can't win with Brock at QB. A change is long overdue. In my estimation, he didn't play well enough last season, to be the defacto starter for this season. It should have been an open competition from the begining.

Secondly, our best offensive weapon has been shelved: Zach Terrell Why? Could it be because Rocco made a commitment to the Jennings family (longtime family friends) ???

Brock is not the answer and every player on both sides of the ball knows this. Zach needs to play--bottom line. IT'S STUFF LIKE THIS THAT TEARS A TEAM APART FROM THE INSIDE.

[paradox]

I think that it's safe to say that LUconn's prophecy has now come to full fruition.

[firebird]

Elon is a class act.

Good luck the rest of the way.

Yeah, class act when they were playing Hells Bells as we were coming on to the field.

I have a lot of pride in our school regarding our treatment of the opposition. I heard the song too when I was coming into the stadium. If I know Leo Lambert (our president), there will be "hell to pay" for someone on that little gaff. I hope the remainder of your experience here was good.

[Ed Dantes]

Landis was 4-5 passing with a touchdown in the 4th quarter. What's that, an 80% completion rate in limited minutes, compared to Brock who was 17 for 37 (45%)? I say give the kid some serious playing time against St. Francis and see how he does.

Replace the words "Landis" with "Kyle Painter" and you'll realize how ridiculous you are, should you know who Kyle Painter is. Elon probably stopped wanting to embarrass us by the 4th quarter and didn't have their 1st string in.

[krh44]

It will take us until at least next year to be able to determine how good this coaching staff is in all "Karcher holdovers" and transfers use up their eligibility this year, we will begin to see how "good" Rocco's recruits really are. .

There is plenty of talent on this team to compete with a Elon team that is comprised of a bunch of FR/Soph.

[jcmanson]

It will take us until at least next year to be able to determine how good this coaching staff is in all "Karcher holdovers" and transfers use up their eligibility this year, we will begin to see how "good" Rocco's recruits really are. .

There is plenty of talent on this team to compete with a Elon team that is comprised of a bunch of FR/Soph.

You are taking my post WAY out of context. I never said that we shouldn't have been able to compete yesterday. We should have, we should have been able to win. We didn't. I'm VERY dissapointed about that. Very dissapointed in the team and the coaching staff. But it is true we will have to wait until next year to see how good Rocco's recruits are because most of them are not playing this year primarily due to the transfers and Karcher holdovers.

[thesportscritic]

After reading all of these posts I kind of wonder if LU will ever be the team that they intend to be in the future and even this year. I wouldn't think that it would take 4 years to turn things around. Elon's Lembo did it in 2. I know that we were 1-10 2 years ago but there seems to be a lot of things going on that have me worried about the future. One of them is coaching. Is this coaching staff overhyped or maybe they are the ones overhyping the players. During summer camp it seemed to be that way. I hate to put so much emphasise on one game or write them off but things do not look good this year unless changes are made in the weak areas such as QB, DL, and DB's, etc. Many things are on my mind that I think could contribute to the team's problems but if I mentioned them that might stir up trouble and might be off topic and besides I am not residing in Lynchburg so I sometimes don't know truely what is going on behind the scenes.

Another issue is all of these 1A transfers being brought in that were supposed to speed up the turnaround process. Are these guys just way too overhyped or are the Karcher holdovers not doing it. If that is the case then the turnaround process could take a long time and I am not talking about 2 years. Another thing that worries me is the lack of playing time for Rocco's freshmen. Could it be they are not ready.

I see what you are saying and there is some truth to it. I guess with the improvements we made on the field last year (even with the weak schedule and all) and with all of the 1A transfers coming in and key players coming back I just expected more out of them and expected them to get to that next level but maybe I and everyone else here expected too much. I would tend to think that the stadium improvements/additions and added coverage (on the web) had some influence there too. And yes I expected more than just winning the Big South but I guess you take what you can get at this point in time Right now it looks like the "Same ol' Liberty football" that has plagued us for the last 10 years. It's like nothing ever changes.

You are absolutely ridiculous every time you post.

actually stevev makes some good points. are you going to continously say that everytime he posts? even if he makes some good points.

[paradox]

Landis was 4-5 passing with a touchdown in the 4th quarter. What's that, an 80% completion rate in limited minutes, compared to Brock who was 17 for 37 (45%)? I say give the kid some serious playing time against St. Francis and see how he does.

Replace the words "Landis" with "Kyle Painter" and you'll realize how ridiculous you are, should you know who Kyle Painter is. Elon probably stopped wanting to embarrass us by the 4th quarter and didn't have their 1st string in.

Ed:

At this stage anyone would be an improvement. Brock is a great kid, but he's out of position. In my opinion, he's not a college QB at any level.

It's important that we don't write Landis off before he gets his chance to prove what he can do. With his mobility alone we have an upgrade over Brock. And anyone that you put in there would be an upgrade to what have in Brock as a passer. Wynton Jackson is a major weapon---somebody has to get in there and get the ball into Wynton's hands because, when he finds an open space he can go the distance.

[krh44]

It will take us until at least next year to be able to determine how good this coaching staff is in all "Karcher holdovers" and transfers use up their eligibility this year, we will begin to see how "good" Rocco's recruits really are. .

There is plenty of talent on this team to compete with a Elon team that is comprised of a bunch of FR/Soph.

You are taking my post WAY out of context. I never said that we shouldn't have been able to compete yesterday. We should have, we should have been able to win. We didn't. I'm VERY dissapointed about that. Very dissapointed in the team and the coaching staff. But it is true we will have to wait until next year to see how good Rocco's recruits are because most of them are not playing this year primarily due to the transfers and Karcher holdovers.

OK JC Wasn't sure what exactly you meant. I know some will use that as an excuse

[El Scorcho]

actually stevev makes some good points. are you going to continously say that everytime he posts? even if he makes some good points.

Yes. He's been wanting to write off everything to do with our current football program since day 1. I don't think anyone is happy with where the team is right now, but I think he takes it to an extreme that is far from justified yet. How can you write off the entire future of Liberty football based on 1 season plus 4 games? You can't. It's ridiculous to say things like that, even if the current team isn't performing like some of us had hoped.

I just don't understand sounding the death knell on the entire program forevermore. It's an extreme amount of pessimism for someone who hasn't exactly put forth the effort to follow the program or even watch games like a lot of other folks here.

I'll concede that right now the team is in trouble, but I'm not ready to write off Liberty football forever over it.

[ALAFlamesFan]

I said I wouldn't criticize our QB so let me use someone elses words. Coach Rocco from today's paper:

Defense wasn't the only problem for Liberty (2-2). Another rough outing for starting quarterback Brock Smith left Rocco's confidence in the junior shaken. His final numbers didn't look terrible. He completed 17 of 37 passes for 222 yards and threw one interception on a ball that went right through the hands of receiver Wynton Jackson. But he rolled those numbers up in the second half when the game was well out of hand. Before halftime, he completed just 7 of 20 passes for 62 yards. Liberty had just one first-half drive of more than four plays, and all eight drives ended in a punt.

Smith overthrew open receivers, but that wasn't the only issue. There were communication problems between Smith and his receivers, leading to breakdowns in routes.

Asked if he expected Smith would still be struggling so much four games into his second full season as a starter, Rocco responded flatly, "no."

"Brock was just very, very inconsistent," Rocco said. "We had open receivers, and we just didn't connect. We had easy throws that just weren't made. It's very frustrating for all of us."

Sophomore Spencer Landis entered in the fourth quarter and led a touchdown drive against Elon's reserves. He went 4-for-5 for 36 yards and threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to Jackson.

"He's a little more mobile," Rocco said. "We'll take a look at him this week and make a decision. It's obviously one of the more critical decisions that we'll make all year. We want to make the right decision, go through all the proper channels in terms of studying the film and having a staff meeting and talking about what we saw and what we think and move from there."

[BJWilliams]

Ive pretty much made my point twice already but it has gone largely ignored in the sea of other thoughts about the game and the overall performance of the team thus far. But I'm going to elaborate on my thoughts seeing as I have been here for as long as I have.

I do not consider myself an expert on LU football by any stretch of the imagination. Even having been here for 5 previous years and having seen some very BAD football in those previous years, I still think that this team is better (yes I said better) than it was when I got here, and for sure better than they were 2 years ago. Now I say that knowing that the last 2 games this team has NOT looked very good. I know that everybody has had some pretty strong thoughts about the band but I am gonna use band as a bit of an analogy to football.

Now everybody knows that marching bands and pretty much any concert musical ensemble have two parts: The ensemble, and the conductor. The ensemble can be made up of some of the best musicians anywhere, but if the conductor is not very good, then the ensemble will not play to the very best of its ability. Now taking that, look at the football team. This team HAS the talent to win 10 games (its obviously not going to this year of course but go with me here), this team can do some amazing things as the latter part of the William and Mary game showed, and as the last part of last season showed. The problem I think, at least on the offensive side, lies with the conductor (the quarterback). Now Brock has shown flashes that he can be an excellent QB, but I think that if this ensemble is going to play ITS music at the very best of its ability, I think maybe handing someone else the baton may be in order.

Now getting to the defense, these guys can stop the run, it has been pretty well seen in the first few games. The problem lies in the defensive backfield. Greiser and Calvary and the boys are not getting in done consistently. There are flashes of brilliance (Pat returning an interception for a TD against Shippensburg), but again, if you are going to be a good team, you can't have flashes of brilliance, you gotta shine your very brightest EVERY play. That is what the good teams at the FBS/I-A, FCS/I-AA, II and III ALL do. That is the sort of thing that sets the Florida's apart from the Missisippi's, the USC's from the Washington State's, the Appalachian State's and the Georgia Southern's from the Citadel's and the Elon's, the Youngstown State's from the Northern Iowa's, the Grand Valley State's and the North Alabama's from the Tusculum's and the Shippensburg's, the Mount Union's from the Bridgewater's. If Liberty is going to truly go from "Good to Great", that kind of consistency needs to happen on the defensive side of the ball.

Those are some of my thoughts. I may come back later and elaborate further but I wanted to share my 2 cents and let those who want to read it read it, and for those of you that want to jump off the proverbial bridge and completely ignore what I said...do what you will.

[JDUB]

first of all, Landis was playing against elon's scrubs. now with that said, he seems to have done well. honestly maybe he should start next game if for nothing else just to show brock that he has to earn the starting job.
still i say lets not completely blame it on him. i'd say the game was only 60% brock. there were a lot of miscommunications, and those may not have all been his fault. there were wayyyy too many penalties. those aren't his fault. the interception wasn't his fault either, wynton should have caught that.
with all that said, he still played terrible and obviously changes need to be made.

also, i think that there were some coaching problems. i still trust rocco. i just think we need to expand the playbook, and hopefully he will make some desparatly needed changes this week. if not we are doomed for the season.

on a positive note, the kicking game was good, and the Oline did protect brock pretty well, even if they got too many penalties and couldn't open lanes for the run.

another huge problem on offense is we are not playing ZT. even though this has been talked about, i'm going to beat it into the ground. WHY WHY WHY is he not on the field. also i think we should throw to wynton more, and throw more long balls. the entire first half there were virtually no passes longer than 3 yards.

its not very hard to play defense against a team who only runs with one guy up the middle and throws short passes out of 5 wide.

[flameshaw]

I put this loss on 2 things:

1. Our team showed no heart following last week. They came out and acted like they didn't care to win or want to win. I don't know if this is a hangover from last week or not. I hope that's what it is, but who knows. They showed no will to win. This must change.

2. The coaching staff. Noone on here seems to admit it, but we got SEVERELY outcoached. They did the exact same thing W&M did on offense, and we looked like we didn't learn anything from that game. The QB had all day to throw, our secondary allowed their receivers to catch the ball. Then we couldn't make a tackle and they would run for 10 yards. I put that on the coaching staff. You have to be able to adjust. You can say our defense is the cover 2 and that's what we're going to run, but that's how you lose. People are going to eat us alive.

Frankly, this was embarassing. I rushed to get there as quick as possible, for what? The team stayed in Lynchburg, the fans should have as well.

Personally, I think that this team is losing heart because they know that they can't win with Brock at QB. A change is long overdue. In my estimation, he didn't play well enough last season, to be the defacto starter for this season. It should have been an open competition from the begining.

Secondly, our best offensive weapon has been shelved: Zach Terrell Why? Could it be because Rocco made a commitment to the Jennings family (longtime family friends) ???

Brock is not the answer and every player on both sides of the ball knows this. Zach needs to play--bottom line. IT'S STUFF LIKE THIS THAT TEARS A TEAM APART FROM THE INSIDE.

Dumbest statement ever on this board. Have you ever seen a football?