As the 2010 football season approaches for the Liberty Flames, I am going to take a look at some of the LU opponents.  We start with St. Francis of Pennsylvania who comes as a lamb to the slaughter at newly renovated Williams Stadium on opening night, September 4th.

For most college football fans, the Red Flash are hardly a known commodity.  Liberty fans were briefly exposed to the program’s existence back in the 2007 season when St. Francis came into Williams Stadium to provide a huge confidence boost to the Flames who were coming off back-to-back losses .  LU pounded the Red Flash rolling up nine touchdowns in the progress.

Courtesy: LibertyFlames.com

Since that game, the Flames have reeled off three straight conference titles.  The Red Flash, well, they have won just 5 times in the 29 games since that night in Lynchburg.  The net result in Loretto, Pennsylvania was that SFU Head Coach Dave Apfar was out.  In his place, the school chose to promote Offensive Coordinator Chris Villarrial after just one season as a collegiate coach.  Actually 2009 was just his third season as a coach at any level after spending two years at a high school.   But his resume sparkles nonetheless …

Courtesy: St. Francis University

Villarrial spent a dozens seasons in the NFL as an offensive lineman that included All-Pro honors.  At 6′ 3″ and over 300 bills, he certainly looms large physically as well.  He’ll need a firm hand to shape the Red Flash into a competitive team after years and years of losing.

Coach V will have some experienced talent returning from a year ago when the Red Flash posted a 2-9 mark.  Penn State transfer John Kelly led St. Francis as a redshirt freshman in ’09 with mixed results.  He connected on just over half his passes for 1357 yards with 7 TDs and 8 INTs.  He’ll need to improve greatly as a sophomore if he wants to have success against the Flames.  That will difficult with no receivers returning with any eye-popping numbers.

On the ground, Villarrial will be looking for senior Jude Yearwood and sophomore Kyle Harbridge to soften up defenses.  Yearwood led the Red Flash in 2009 with 518 yards and he found the endzone 5 times.  Meanwhile St. Francis’ own ‘Easton Assassin’ Harbridge averaged 6.2 yards a carry in limited action.

Defensively the Red Flash lived up to their named of disappearing in a hurry against opposing offenses.  They gave up 4.4 yards a carry and didn’t do much better against the pass.  They were opportunistic picking off 13 passes.  The linebacking corps provides the leadership for the unit.  Seniors Scott Lewis & Matthew Parker both racked up over a hundred tackles in ’09 and combined for 25 tackles for loss and 11 sacks.

Unfortunately for Villarrial, he simply doesn’t have enough scholarship bodies to match up with a fully funded program like LU.  Competing in the Northeast Conference, St. Francis is limited to 30 scholarships … a total less than half of what the Flames have on their roster.

All of this adds up to a likely blowout that will christen the newly expanded stadium in grand style.  It should also afford Coach Danny Rocco an opportunity to get plenty of faces an opportunity to get their feet wet in the season.