Local product Korrey Davis intends to play for Liberty

After the 2008 season, Heritage High running back Korrey Davis had narrowed his choices to two schools: Massachusetts and Liberty. The chance to play for a perennial playoff contender in one of the nation’s top FCS conferences — the CAA — was too tantalizing to pass up, so Davis packed his bags for Amherst, Mass., and spent a year playing for the Minutemen.

Davis quickly realized, though, that he missed home, so he began to explore transfer options. Though he initially spurned Liberty, Davis contacted the Flames’ football coaching staff and found the school still had some interest.

Provided he passes an online summer class at UMass, Davis said he will enroll at Liberty in the fall and hopes to be on the field playing for the Flames in the 2010 season.

“They wanted me out of high school, and I knew right off the bat when I was first thinking about moving closer to home, that I had a good opportunity to go to Liberty,” Davis said.

Per NCAA transfer rules, Davis will have to sit out a season. That’s fine with him. He said Thursday he had hoped to redshirt during his freshman year at UMass, but the coaching staff had other ideas, playing Davis in 10 of the Minutemen’s 12 games last season.

“I feel like with a year off lifting weights, getting bigger and faster, it will really help me,” the 5-foot-10, 185-pound Davis said. “It’ll help me become an overall better football player.”

Davis rushed for 1,446 yards and 17 touchdowns as a Heritage senior. As a UMass freshman, he ran for 191 yards on 50 carries and scored twice. Fifteen of those touches and his first career touchdown came during UMass’ loss at nationally ranked Texas Tech.

Childress back

Liberty’s 2005 game at Connecticut was well out of hand by the time then-Flames coach Ken Karcher put freshman linebacker Ian Childress on the field.

Childress hurt his hand that day and never played another down that year. The season, it seemed, was a total loss for Childress. But the linebacker quietly appealed to the NCAA for a medical hardship season, a request that was granted earlier this week, meaning Childress’ Liberty career is not over.

Childress was Liberty’s fourth leading tackler a year ago with 59 stops and was second on the team with 3 ½ sacks. He’ll likely regain his starting strongside linebacker role.

“We’re really excited about it,” LU coach Danny Rocco said. “He came on real strong last year and had an outstanding year for us. He’s just going to give us the kind of quality depth we’re going to need at that linebacker position. We feel like we’re in great shape, two deep at every spot, with guys who have played or have started in the past.”

Gordon signs

Evan Gordon, the son of former Liberty standout Eric Gordon and the younger brother of Los Angeles Clippers guard Eric Gordon, Jr., has signed a national letter of intent to play basketball at Liberty.

“Evan brings great poise, toughness and defensive ability to our backcourt,” Liberty coach Dale Layer said. “He possesses athletic ability and a scoring potential that will help us in a lot of ways.”

Evan Gordon comes to Liberty from Hargrave Military Academy, where he played on the post-graduate team as a 12th grader. Gordon averaged 13.0 points and 6.0 assists per game for a Tiger team that featured 10 Division I signees on its 12-man roster.

Gordon, who plays both guard positions, also drew interest from Butler, Detroit, Penn State, San Diego and Xavier.