LIBERTY REPORT: Big South media day

CHARLOTTE, N.C.

Some quick-hit news and notes from the Big South football media day at the Marriott Renaissance Suites, just as soon as I get those crazy kids from Vector Marketing to stop chanting “Ole! Ole! Ole! Ol-e! Oh-le! Oh-le!” …

* Liberty was once again the preseason favorite in the Big South Conference, receiving 12 of 13 first-place votes. The other, curiously, went to Charleston Southern, which was picked to finish fifth in the six-team league. No one else picked CSU to finish higher than fourth. The rest of the poll:

1. Liberty (12) -- 77 points
2. Coastal Carolina -- 58
3. Gardner-Webb -- 52
4. Stony Brook -- 38
5. Charleston Southern -- 30
6. VMI -- 18

This conference has a remarkable knack of correctly predicting its football champion. Liberty was the pick last year and won the conference in resounding fashion. The last preseason favorite not to win the title? Gardner-Webb in 2004, the first year of Coastal Carolina’s three-year run at the top of the conference.

* The Flames placed eight players on the preseason all-Big South team. LU tailback Rashad Jennings was the league’s preseason offensive player of the year. He was the Big South’s offensive player of the year last year. Gardner-Webb’s Mario Brown was the defensive player of the year pick.

The whole team:

Offense
QB - Brock Smith, Liberty

RB - Jennings; Conte Cuttino, Stony Brook

WR - Dee Brown, Charleston Southern; Lynell Suggs, Stony Brook; Dobson Collins, Gardner-Webb

TE - Scott Fambrough, Coastal Carolina

OL - Demario Deese, GWU; Britt Leggett, CCU; Mike Godsil, LU; Britt Stone, LU; Alex Bragg, CSU

Defense
DL - Colin Dugan, LU; Phillip Oboh, CCU; Adam Soivilien, SBU; Jake Killeen, CSU

LB - Mario Brown, GWU; Nick Hursky, LU; D.J. Rice, CCU; Josh Mitchell, CSU

DB - Marrio Norman, CCU; Cedrick McGowan, GWU; Daniel Cooke, GWU; Patrick Calvary, LU

Special Teams
PK - Luke Gaddis, SBU

P - Michael Hanna, GWU

LS - Dan Pope, LU

KR - Tim Maypray, VMI

PR - Dobson Collins, GWU

* The media star of the day Friday was VMI coach Sparky Woods, whose credentials are sparkling. He’s a former head coach at Appalachian State and South Carolina and most recently was an assistant on Mike Shula’s staff at Alabama, before Shula was shown the door in Tuscaloosa. Woods was out of coaching last year but didn’t mind the break from work. He spent the year watching his son play at the University of Tennessee.

* Coaching at the college level has been a learning process for Presbyterian coach Bobby Bentley. The biggest lessons learned from a year ago? Knowing just how much contact you can have with your team in the summer. Bentley made the jump from coaching at Byrnes High School in South Carolina to Presbyterian, and he realized very quickly that hands-on coaching during the summer is a no-no, a stark contrast from the prep level, where a lot of team building goes on during the summer. College football in the summer is about individual work, not orchestrated team drills.

* Stony Brook athletics director Jim Fiore was on hand to talk about the Seawolves’ venture into the Big South Conference. Look for a story on Stony Brook in Sunday’s News & Advance.

* Also coming up this weekend, stories on Rashad Jennings and a Liberty notebook in Saturday’s newspaper; and a Big South Conference notebook in Sunday’s paper.

* The conference announced its 2008 television schedule:

Aug. 28 - Charleston Southern at Miami (ESPN360)

Aug. 30 - Coastal Carolina at Penn State (Big Ten Network); North Greenville at Liberty (Flames Television Network)

Sept. 6 - Glenville State at Liberty (FTN)

Sept. 13 - Stony Brook at Maine (WABI-TV 5)

Oct. 4 - Liberty at Coastal Carolina (MASN)

Oct. 11 - Stony Brook at Liberty (FTN)

Oct. 18 - Lafayette at Liberty (FTN)

Oct. 25 - Charleston Southern at Liberty (FTN)

Nov. 8 - Coastal Carolina at Gardner-Webb (MASN)

Nov. 15 - Gardner-Webb at Liberty (FTN); VMI at Stony Brook (MASN)

Nov. 22 - Elon at Liberty (FTN)

***

Oh, and on those crazy kids from Vector Marketing. They held the conference room next to the media luncheon at the Renaissance, and as emcee Matt Hogue introduced the all-conference team, the Vector folks launched into an impromptu Spanish soccer chant. Thursday night, they blared Pink Floyd’s “Money” into the back of the hotel. I wonder if Michael Scott was conducting the meeting …