Second-half rally lifts LU past N.C. Central

Danny Rocco knew Liberty was facing a good team Saturday. The Flames have opened their home schedule against a Division II team in each of the past five seasons, so first-game routs have been commonplace. By the time Liberty’s players believed North Carolina Central was good enough to compete with the Flames in front of a record Williams Stadium crowd, the Flames were in a full-fledged dogfight.

Trailing at halftime, Liberty went back to its power-I roots, using power runs to regain control of the game. The combination of the Flames’ run game and its opportunistic defense sparked Liberty to a 35-10 win in front of 16,112, but Liberty’s players came away from the victory with a much greater respect for the program Mose Rison is building down in Durham, N.C.

“We came in in the first half and we felt like this game was going to be ours,” Liberty freshman tailback Aldreakis Allen said. “But like coach Rocco said, this was a well-coached team and they understand how to play ball.”

The Eagles (0-2) took advantage of a bevy of Liberty special teams mistakes early and built a 10-0 lead, leaving the assembled crowd a little leery. But as bad as Liberty was in the kick game early — LU had a running into the kicker penalty, muffed a punt that led to an NCCU touchdown and got called for kick return interference — it was a special teams play that got the Flames back into the game.

With quarterback Tommy Beecher woozy from a hard hit, Mike Brown took over full-time signal-calling duties, leaving Aaron Hewlett as the main punt returner. With his team down 10-0, a 25-yard Hewlett punt return gave Liberty the ball at the NCCU 29 late in the first half, and four plays later, Brown ran in from seven yards out for a touchdown, cutting the NCCU lead to 10-7 heading into the break.

Rocco was clearly unhappy with Liberty’s first-half play, but he said he surprised his team in the locker room. Instead of ranting and raving, he calmly encouraged his team. The Flames (1-1) had withstood NCCU’s best shot, he reasoned, so there was no need to panic.

“There’s a lot of ways you can go,” Rocco said. “You can go south. You can go in the tank. You can stop fighting. But we opted to fight, to regain the momentum and to make ourselves a better football team.”

The chosen path for that betterment? The run, which was exactly what senior captain offensive guard Bryan Mosier wanted to hear.

“That’s a big part of who we are,” Mosier said. “We definitely just need to get that going. That would open up passes, and everything else.”

Liberty went on a 10-play, 52-yard drive, capped by Brown’s 1-yard touchdown pass to tight end Dominique Jones. Liberty ran six times on the drive, and on the touchdown, Jones was wide open because B.J. Hayes drew the entire defense to the right. Jones was on the left, and his only concern was hauling in the pass.

“They actually made it look easy at the start of the second half,” Rison said.

The backbreaker came early in the fourth quarter. With NCCU pinned deep in its own territory, Liberty’s Terry Adams broke free on an inside blitz and rushed Eagles quarterback Michael Johnson, who retreated into his own end zone. Adams hit Johnson, who dropped the football. Tiny Liberty cornerback Tim Torrence pounced on the ball at the 1, and on the next play, Aldreakis Allen scored his first collegiate touchdown, plunging in from 1 yard out to give Liberty a 21-10 lead.

The Flames then forced NCCU into a three-and-out, and after the Eagles were called for an offsides penalty on the first play of the ensuing drive, B.J. Hayes took a handoff, made one cut at the line and burst through a huge hole for a 74-yard touchdown and a 28-10 lead. Hayes finished with 129 yards on 11 carries.

“It’s a good win,” Rocco said. “We put ourselves in position now. We’re 1-1. We look forward to next week’s challenge up at Lafayette, a team that came in here last year and really took it to us, out-hit us, out-hustled us, out-played us and beat us in our own backyard.”