If a 14th-ranked Liberty football team didn't make the Division I-AA playoffs last year, what reason is there to believe that a 16th-ranked Flames squad will get the nod this year?

If coach Danny Rocco has his way, the Flames (6-2 overall, 3-0 Big South) won't be ranked 16th by the time the selections are made.

"If we win out, we'll get in," Rocco said Wednesday. "I'm almost convinced of it. We should have gotten in last year. The last two teams we play [Stony Brook and Gardner-Webb] are the teams with the two highest RPIs in our league.

"I've noticed this year that we've gotten more respect in the coaches' poll, and coaches understand. You go on the road in your conference against a team [Stony Brook] that's undefeated; at the end of the year that's big."

The Flames, who have won 14 consecutive Big South Conference games, entertain VMI at 7:07 p.m. Saturday in their regular-season home finale.

The match-up will feature two of the Big South's electrifying players, preseason conference player of the year Tim Maypray from VMI and Liberty's Mike Brown.

Brown, a 6-foot, 195-pound sophomore from Charlottesville's Monticello High School, has a team-high 38 receptions and has completed 45 of 59 passes for 395 yards and four touchdowns. When he isn't playing wide receiver, Brown serves as the Flames' back-up quarterback and has rushed for 295 yards and five touchdowns.

"He's our Tim Maypray," Rocco told the media as far back as Big South football media day.

At 5-8 and 165 pounds, Maypray is smaller than Brown and, while he's listed as a quarterback, is less apt to throw the ball. Maypray has five passing attempts all season.

"Mike will be a two-year starter for me at quarterback," Rocco said. "The [Division I-A] schools didn't think he was big enough to play quarterback and kind of shied away and didn't want to project him as a receiver or an athlete. He's not a 4.4 [for 40 yards] and he's not a 4.50, but he can run. He had a phenomenal game at West Virginia.

"He's a baller. There's no doubt that he's one of those guys who could play in the ACC."

Dubious distinction

Virginia Tech was ranked No. 2 behind Southern Cal in one of the football polls this week, but it wasn't a designation the Hokies would have wanted. The Trojans and Hokies were 1-2 on a FOX Sports ranking of the 10 most disappointing teams in college football.

At least the Hokies are in elite company. Florida State was fifth on a list that included No. 3 Ohio State and No. 4 Oklahoma.

Milestones

In 2004, Blair Trail became the first Roanoke College volleyball coach to win 100 matches in a career, and last month she passed the 200-victory mark.

Trail got her 200th win on the same day that one of her players, Cave Spring graduate Maggie Wagner, broke the Roanoke attacks records held by her coach. Trail, then known as Blair Calvert, was a standout player at North Cross who transferred to Roanoke after beginning her college career at Radford.

Local update

Patrick Henry graduate Maggie Moore earned first-team All-ODAC honors in women's cross country after finishing fourth in the conference championship meet. It was the sixth consecutive meet in which Moore, a junior, had been the first Maroons' runner across the line.

Former Salem High School quarterback and All-Timesland defensive back Mark Hanabury has a team-high 28 receptions for Davidson College, which has a 2-6 record and plays in the Pioneer League, which describes itself as "the nation's only non-scholarship [Division I-AA] conference that offers football as its only sport."

Non-revenue

The University of Virginia will serve as host starting today for the ACC field-hockey championships. The Cavaliers, who lost 20 consecutive ACC games prior to the arrival of coach Michelle Madison, are ranked No. 3 in the country but are seeded No. 3 in the tournament behind top-ranked Maryland (18-0) and second-ranked North Carolina (16-1).

Virginia's two losses were to Maryland 3-1 in College Park, Md., and to North Carolina 2-1 in overtime in Charlottesville.

The quarterfinals and semifinals are today and Friday, with the championship scheduled for noon Sunday at the University Hall Turf Field.