Like the two men who interviewed before him, Brandon Streeter arrived at Liberty’s football operations last winter dressed to the nines in a suit and tie, eager to speak to Flames coach Danny Rocco for the position of offensive coordinator.

The Tigers’ suffocating defensive pressure turned a normally team-oriented Liberty club into a bunch of one-on-one basketball players.

A few weeks ago, after Liberty’s football team returned from a 20-13 win at Charleston Southern, Flames tailback Aldreakis Allen expressed surprise at just how dead the atmosphere at CSU Stadium was.

The atmosphere today at Gardner-Webb figures to be a bit better, but not by much. The Bulldogs average 5,124 fans per game at Spangler Stadium, the place where Liberty clinched its first Big South championship two seasons ago with a 31-0 victory.

Liberty’s defense set the tone for its season-opening victory over Winston-Salem State on Friday evening, keeping the Lady Rams off the scoreboard for the first 8:44 of play. Meanwhile, redshirt freshman Devon Brown took care of things on the offensive end, exploding for 26 points in the Lady Flames’ 71-26 win at the Vines Center.

FAIRFAX — If you’re looking for theatrics or emotional outbursts from a college basketball coach, Dale Layer is probably not your guy.

He was on his best behavior Friday night in his first game as Liberty’s coach. He stayed calm, even though his team trailed by as many as 19 points in the second half. He was composed.

His team followed suit.

The young Flames, with a new coach and a lineup devoid of a superstar guard who now calls Durham home, didn’t throw in the towel. They followed their coach’s lead and rallied to within three points before succumbing to host George Mason 76-72 at the Patriot Center.

Longtime Liberty PA announcer Jim Duffie retiring

The Keydets commit eight turnovers, helping Liberty to a 54-14 rout

Richard Anthony isn’t even on Liberty’s official football roster. Spencer Landis is a fourth-string quarterback who hasn’t played a snap this season.

Yet those two became important players at practice this week, as the Flames prepared for tonight’s game against VMI — Liberty’s home finale — and the Keydets’ triple-option offense.

Danny Broggin was a state-championship winning quarterback at William Campbell High School in 2005, but once he took the final snap in the Generals’ 18-0 win over J.I. Burton at James Madison’s Bridgeforth Stadium, he knew his time as a signal caller was done.

No one was recruiting the 6-foot Broggin as a quarterback, and the school who eventually offered him a scholarship — Liberty — had no plans of using him behind center.

When he arrived in the fall of 2006, though, Broggin had no idea what his role would be. It’s a theme that’s carried over throughout his Flames career.

When Liberty football coach Danny Rocco first decorated his office at the Williams Football Operations Center when it opened in 2006, he adorned the walls with photos from previous coaching stops.

There was a shot of Virginia’s linebacking corps, which included players like Ahmad Brooks and Darryl Blackstock. There was a shot of Boston College beating Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.

As the years went by, he replaced the art with photos of Liberty’s football accomplishments. There’s a shot of the Flames winning their first Big South crown on Gardner-Webb’s field. There are photos of key members of this season’s senior class, a group that’s near and dear to the head coach’s heart.

Presbyterian has something on Liberty that no other Big South conference team does in the last three seasons. The Blue Hose have beaten the Flames.

Once in the running for Liberty’s starting quarterback job, Spencer Landis fights through elbow surgery and is determined to help the team during his senior season

Freshman Evan Gordon making an impression for Liberty

Aldreakis Allen lined up behind quarterback Tommy Beecher last Saturday at Charleston Southern, like he does any time Liberty sets up in the power-I formation.

This week’s inspirational message at Liberty’s football operations center: “Leave nothing to chance.”

It’s plastered all over the walls on sheets of white copy paper, accompanied by Charleston Southern logos. The point is to remind Liberty’s players that they essentially hold the key to the rest of their season. The Flames have been the dominant team in the Big South since 2006, winning 12 straight league games.

Liberty has outscored today’s opponent, Charleston Southern, 72-0 in the last three halves between the two teams and 92-10 overall.

The pictures are undeniable. When Liberty’s players look at the video from the Flames’ last two games against Charleston Southern, all they see is the Flames taking the Buccaneers to the woodshed. Liberty beat the Buccaneers 42-0 last October at home, and two years ago in South Carolina, the Flames blasted CSU 50-10.

Aldreakis Allen ran for three touchdowns and Liberty routed Coastal Carolina 58-13 on Saturday.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Considering the staggering personnel losses and the offseason drama Liberty’s men’s basketball team endured, it’s not surprising at all that the Big South’s coaches and media picked the Flames to finish seventh in the league race this season.

It’s been something of a strange season for the Virginia men’s soccer team. Trying to predict what George Gelnovatch’s crew will do on any given night is kind of like guessing who will win the next Nobel Peace Prize.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Considering the staggering personnel losses and the offseason drama Liberty’s men’s basketball team endured, it’s not surprising at all that the Big South’s coaches and media picked the Flames to finish seventh in the league race this season.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Art Parakhouski’s first impressions of America were formed in the snowy, windswept hamlet of Twin Falls, Idaho. Tucked about halfway between Boise and Pocatello near Interstate 84, Twin Falls is home to about 40,000 people and the College of Southern Idaho, a community college that regularly pumps out Division I basketball players.

The “Beat JMU” t-shirt that Danny Rocco wore in the week leading up to Liberty’s game with James Madison late last month received plenty of pub in the greater Harrisonburg area. Rest assured, though, JMU wasn’t the first school to be featured on a shirt at a Liberty practice. That distinction goes to Coastal Carolina.

Danny Rocco’s natural inclination is to express disappointment with his football team’s inconsistency.

Then he looks down the list of offensive and defensive skill players and reminds himself just how young this particular Liberty team is.

Among the top three rushers, two are sophomores and one is a freshman. Six of the top seven receivers are either freshmen or sophomores. And though he’s a senior, the starting quarterback didn’t arrive on campus until August, so he’s a relative newcomer.

Inadvertently, Rashad Jennings has made life extremely difficult on Liberty’s two young tailbacks.

At the beginning of the week, Liberty football coach Danny Rocco said with some certainty that he would play two quarterbacks today against James Madison. But that was Tuesday, and at that time, Rocco figured wide receiver Chris Summers would have a fairly good shot at returning from a foot injury suffered during the Flames’ win against Lafayette last Saturday in Pennsylvania.

During most days at practice, Liberty University’s kickers, punters and long snapper gather together on one sideline, doing all sorts of things that don’t exactly look like they belong at a football practice.

Take Wednesday for instance. One by one, Mike Larsson, Matt Bevins, Ben Shipps, Paul Young and Robby Cramer all took off down the sideline, jumping as high in the air as possible on one leg before coming down and doing it again with the other. It looked more like practice for a dance troupe than a football team.

Liberty coach Danny Rocco first saw it on a recruiting trip to Monticello High School, but he didn’t see it on a football field. It was the dead of winter, and Mike Brown was in Monticello’s gym at basketball practice. Brown didn’t have a future in basketball. He was mulling three FCS football scholarship offers, so it could be forgiven if Brown chose to slack off during the hoops season.

It’s been seven years since a team ranked in the FCS’ top 10 has made the trip to Lynchburg to face Liberty. That fact alone makes Liberty’s game Saturday night against No. 7 James Madison huge.

Mike Brown makes his first career start at QB with Tommy Beecher out with a concussion

Chris Summers has a career-high 14 catches in Liberty’s 19-13 victory.