LU goes from 10 losses to 10 wins in row

By Chris Lang
Published: October 4, 2008

CONWAY, S.C. — When Danny Rocco took over Liberty’s football program in December 2005, the Flames were on a 10-game losing streak, the worst skid in school history. Confidence needed to be rebuilt. Baby steps needed to be taken.

The Flames were competitive in Rocco’s first year. Of their five losses, four were by seven points or less. Rocco reflected on that year after his team beat Coastal Carolina 43-38 Saturday night in Conway, and how the fortunes of a once-moribund program had completely changed.

The win gave Liberty a school-record-tying 10th straight victory. Those close games that went against LU in 2006? They’ve swung the other way. Liberty won its fifth straight road game, with the last three coming by a combined 11 points.

“It just shows you how far our program has come,” Rocco said. “It’s the reality of it. It takes a while to get the thing turned. And we got it turned. Think about that turnaround right there — a 10-game losing streak to a 10-game winning streak in less than 2½ years.

“We’re doing some of the right things. Our kids are certainly working hard. They’re buying into what we’re teaching. I’m really proud of our kids and our coaching staff here tonight.”

No. 20 Liberty (5-0, 1-0 Big South) gained a huge upper hand in its bid to defend its conference title. The Flames will play just one more conference road game — at VMI Nov. 8 — and play their next three games at home, where Liberty hasn’t lost since the middle of 2006. The school record of nine regular-season wins is an attainable goal, with five home games to play.

“We’ve got to keep our poise, keep our confidence and keep our unity,” said Liberty quarterback Brock Smith, who completed 15 of 24 passes for 239 yards and three touchdowns. “Now we’re going to start focusing on Stony Brook. Nobody else.”

The Flames rode a mistake-free game from Smith and a grind-it-out, 195-yard effort from Rashad Jennings to a wild victory at blacked-out Brooks Stadium. The Flames scored the game’s first 10 points, fell behind 14-10, then led by as many as 17 in the second half.

But Coastal (3-3, 0-1) simply wouldn’t fold. Quarterback Zach MacDowall threw for 382 yards and two touchdowns, and every time the Flames seemed to have the Chanticleers on the ropes, they managed to convert.

The boxing analogy was apt, considering CCU coach David Bennett’s halftime speech. He pulled on a pair of boxing gloves and punched himself in the face to drive home a point to his team, which trailed 24-14 at the break.

“Now are we going to lie there and take it,” Bennett said, “or are we going to fight back.”

Coastal took advantage of a weary Liberty defense in the second half. After Liberty opened the half with a field goal, Coastal responded with a 17-play, 48-yard drive that ended in a Justin Durham field goal.

Liberty countered on the next offensive play, as B.J. Hayes took a pitch to the right, got a block from Jennings and flew 66 yards for his first college touchdown. Liberty led 34-17, but the defense barely got a chance to rest.

Coastal came back, drove 75 yards in 12 plays and cut the lead to 34-24 when MacDowall scored on a 6-yard run.

“When we watch the film, that’s probably going to be the most evident thing,” Rocco said. “We just put ourselves in a position where we got worn down a bit. They just nickeled and dimed us and moved the ball. To their credit, they made plays.”

Coastal hung in there, but the Chanticleers — who lost a Big South game at home for the first time since 2003 — never had the ball down fewer than eight points. Liberty’s run game, which was somewhat bottled up in the first three quarters, wore Coastal down in the fourth. Jennings broke off his biggest runs in the fourth quarter, including a 35-yard touchdown that put LU up 40-24.

Jennings had a chance for another score, but slid with just more than a minute to go untouched at the Coastal 2. The Chanticleers had no timeouts left and no chance to stop the clock, and Smith took a knee twice to seal Liberty’s first victory at Brooks Stadium.

“That’s a good team, it’s not like you’re just going to smash them and throw them around,” Jennings said. “They’re very athletic, and they had a lot of energy all over the place. They were keying, spying me. That’s just when other players step up and make plays.”

Coastal actually outgained Liberty 534-531, but most of those yards came late with the Chanticleers fiercely trying to rally in the final minutes. When Coastal’s onside-kick attempt with 1:59 left went out of bounds, the Flames needed only to get one first down to secure the win.

“We made so many big plays,” Rocco said. “It’s just exciting to see us be able to go out there and move the ball and score points the way we did. We’ve got to get better on defense. That’s going to be our No. 1 focus here this week. We’re going to have to take a long, hard look at what we’re doing here in terms of personnel, schemes and calls. We’ve got to get this thing righted.

“If we weren’t able to put up 43 points tonight, who’s to say we would have come out of here with a win.”