By HUGH CONRAD
For The Tribune-Democrat
LORETTO —
The Chris Villarrial era will begin today when St. Francis travels south Virginia to face Liberty in a noon kickoff at Lynchburg Stadium.
The Flames are a full-scholarship program and are ranked nationally in Football Championship Subdivision polls. Nevertheless, Villarrial and his staff are stressing that the Red Flash can play well against Liberty.
“We have a huge challenge ahead of us, but we are doing OK,” Villarrial said.
“Some of the young guys are nervous about game week. Obviously, the fear is there that they are bigger and faster. But, we are telling them that Liberty still has to wear pads, and the guy who goes out and plays hardest will win. That’s the biggest thing that we want to stress.”
The Northeast Conference, in which St. Francis competes, is for limited-scholarship programs.
Villarrial, a former NFL lineman for 11 years, served as an offensive coordinator for a year under Dave Opfar before taking the job when Opfar resigned after the 2009 season after posting a 2-9 record.
The Red Flash offense has nine of 11 starters returning, and sophomore quarterback John Kelly returns to direct the offense, giving the Red Flash more confidence than at the start of last season.
“We are further along than we were last year,” Villarrial said. “John is making much quicker reads than he did last year.
“We are still having some problems with the young receivers getting on the same page with the quarterbacks, but those are things that we will iron out with time.”
Jude Yearwood (552 yards) returns at tailback, but he will be hard-pressed to stave off a challenge from sophomore Kyle Harbridge (504), who had an outstanding freshman season on special teams and on offense.
The defense returns six starters, with the linebackers the strength of that outfit. The leading returnee is Scott Lewis, a Bishop McCort grad who led the Red Flash with 118 tackles last year. Lewis has established himself as one of the top tacklers not just at St. Francis but nationally and in the Northeast Conference. Lewis now has 386 career tackles, which is a St. Francis record, and is 61 short of the NEC mark of 447. He leads the FCS active tacklers with an average of 12 tackles per game.
Linebackers Matthew Parker, who recorded 103 tackles last year, Ryan Shepard (57), and Tyler Gillmen (22) also return.
St. Francis opened the 2009 season against a nationally ranked opponent and battled New Hampshire well into the fourth quarter before falling 24-14.
The challenge for the defense is learning different schemes for new defensive coordinator Ralph Clark.
Liberty boasts some western Pennsylvania ties.
Coach Danny Rocco is the son of Frank Rocco Sr., a former Fox Chapel coach who then coached for three years at Altoona High School and was an assistant to coach Joe Paterno at Penn State before taking an administrative job there.
Danny Rocco played two years at Penn State before finishing his career as a linebacker at Wake Forest.
Rocco has led the Flames to three consecutive championships in the Big South Conference. They finished 8-3 last season.
The trek to Lynchburg is the first of seven road trips, with just four games at DeGol Field.
