Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Fan the Flames Review- Gardner-Webb

The Liberty Flames showed no loss of momentum following the bye week as they scored on three of the first 4 possessions and cruised to a 34-0 victory over the Gardner-Webb Runnin Bulldogs in Lynchburg.

The Runnin Bulldogs were stuck in neutral against the Flames defense, finishing with only 56 total yards of offense, after spending the entire first half in the negative. The defense sacked GWU quarterback Lucas Beatty 5 times and held him to only73 passing yards, the week after he set a Big South record 430 in a win over former Big South member VMI.

The star of the game for the offense was DJ Abnar, who finished with 137 yards rushing before leaving the game with a minor ankle injury. Abnar became the first running back since former Flames RB (and current New York Giants RB) Rashad Jennings, who had a run of 10 in a row from 2007-2008.

On the defense, the story was the line,  led by Chima Uzowihe, who ffinished  with 2.5 sacks, moving into the top 5 all time in sacks, passing Troy Rice.

Inside the Numbers

Here are some numbers from this weekend:

7:  Josh Woodrum cleared 200 yards passing for the 7th time in 8 games this season, the only time he did not finish with at least 200 yards was the opener against UNC
THe victory was also the 7th time in 8 years where Liberty won the conference opener. The last loss in the first conference game came in 2006...the opponent? Gardner-Webb
3: Last week was the third time all season where Woodrum and Darrin Peterson did not connect for a TD.
2: Despite not finishing with a TD catch on the day, Dante Shells finished with 2 catches for 106 yards, good for a 53 ypr average.

Will come back with a preview of a key Big South matchup against Presbyterian tomorrow.

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