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(STATS) -- Virginia Tech had one of college footballs most stabilizing forces on the sidelines for nearly three decades, with Frank Beamer transforming a program that had accomplished nothing into a consistent contender and periodic powerhouse.Its easy to imagine folks in Blacksburg feeling a little out of sorts Saturday as they watch someone other than Beamer calling the shots, but Justin Fuente wont be the only newcomer theyll see.Liberty has never faced Virginia Tech despite the schools relative proximity along the Blue Ridge Mountains, but the Flames hour-and-a-half bus ride from Lynchburg isnt any sort of sightseeing tour. Liberty opened two of its first four seasons under Turner Gill on the road against ACC opponents and led in the second half both times before falling.Can this trip be different?Were gonna have to play the best football game weve ever played to have a chance to be competitive, Gill said. I dont know whether thats gonna be good enough or not, but well give it our best shot.OK, so maybe thats not exactly a ringing endorsement for the Flames shot at playing spoiler in Fuentes debut -- neither is the 30 1/2-point spread Las Vegas has installed -- but there are a few reasons Liberty can hang around with a Hokies team thats hardly guaranteed to make a 24th straight bowl appearance.The biggest is that Virginia Tech isnt quite sure what to expect from a Flames offense that will have a very different look. Gone is four-year starter Josh Woodrum, a pocket passer who led the Flames to three Big South titles before last seasons 6-5 struggle. In his place is little-used junior Stephon Masha, who will be operating a no-huddle spread attack.Hes more athletic, can run the ball, hes more dynamic with the ball in his hands whereas the quarterback they had last year, throwing the ball was his strength, said Hokies defensive coordinator Bud Foster, entering his 30th season in Blacksburg. This kid can do a little bit of both, and thats where the challenge is going to be, how theyre going to set their offense up so they can run the quarterback.Mashas most prominent moment in his first two seasons happened to lead Liberty to one of the biggest wins in school history. With Woodrum sidelined in a late November game against No. 1 Coastal Carolina, Masha came in and went 20 for 33 for 285 yards, engineering a 15-14 upset -- and that was after he threw four touchdown passes and ran for 99 yards a week earlier in a two-point loss to Charleston Southern.Its not really a big transition, being here for three years, I know what I have to do jumping into that starting role, Masha said. I always prepare as if Im the starting quarterback, now I know I have to step up vocally and be a leader for the team on and off the field. All these guys know they can count on me.How much of a threat Masha will be in the running game remains to be seen, but Liberty could certainly use a dual threat. The Flames averaged just 3.6 yards per carry last season -- 88th in the FCS -- and Gill promoted Joe Dailey from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator to help fix that. The concern with letting Masha show off his wheels outside the pocket is simple -- if he goes down, the backup is true freshman Stephen Calvert.Im not a coach worried about if hes going to get hurt, if hes going to get banged up, or that kind of thing, Gill said. We are going to call the best play to be successful. If hes going to run it 20 or 30 times, so be it.Liberty is hoping to run 80 plays per game after averaging 67.9 during Gills first four seasons in Lynchburg, and it can get a pretty good lesson in tempo by staring across the sidelines Saturday. Memphis ran 80.2 plays per contest under Fuente last season while averaging 40.2 points behind the arm of current Broncos rookie Paxton Lynch.The Hokies will be running their own no-huddle attack with Jerod Evans in the role of Lynch. A transfer from Trinity Valley Junior College, Evans threw just three interception in 289 attempts last season, and ball security has typically been a key topic for Fuente. Lynch only threw four INTs in 443 attempts last season.Evans has a 1,000-yard rusher in Travon McMillian, a reliable giant of a tight end in the 6-foot-7 Bucky Hodges and a stud wideout in junior Isaiah Ford, who caught 11 TDs last season -- three fewer than Libertys wideouts totaled. Gone is star Flames defensive end Chima Uzowihe, but Liberty has eight starters back on defense. Among those are nose tackle JaRon Greene and defensive end Erwin Dessources, who will need to get some penetration up front to make Evans think even faster than hed like.Quarterbacks have always done well wherever (Fuente) has been, so I know their offense is gonna be outstanding, Gill said.AROUND THE BIG SOUTH- Monmouth opens its meat grinder of a schedule (eight road games, three at home in the final season of the crumbling Kessler Field) with a fifth meeting in six years with Lehigh (Saturday, 12:30 ET). The last two have been one-possession games, with the Hawks finally taking down the Mountain Hawks 28-21 on the road two years ago. Sophomore quarterback Cody Williams wasnt around for that win, but senior running back Lavon Chaney was, totaling 165 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns. Monmouth will likely ride Chaney again as it returns to Bethlehems Goodman Stadium.- Charleston Southern, on the heels of announcing self-imposed recruiting penalties against coach Jamey Chadwell and an unnamed assistant, will try to avoid overlooking Division II Kentucky State (Saturday, 11:45 am). Itd be easy to do so considering the Buccaneers are coming off a heartbreaking OT loss to five-time defending FCS champion North Dakota State -- and oh, by the way, theres the minor matter of invading Tallahassee on Sept. 10 to take on No. 4 Florida State. Chadwells team shouldnt have many issues here.- Football fever returns to Kennesaw State as the program kicks off its second year, and the Owls open this campaign the same way they began their first: against an overmatched East Tennessee State team. The Owls rolled to a 56-16 win over the Buccaneers on the road to open their inaugural season and look for more of the same in this one (Saturday, 7 pm). Kennesaw State only completed two passes in last years matchup, but one was a 69-yard touchdown strike to the speedy Justin Sumpter, who was sixth in the FCS at 20.2 yards per catch last season and should find himself open often again.- Another rematch from last seasons non-conference schedule takes place in Elon, North Carolina, where Gardner-Webb looks for a little revenge from a game that was ... well, lets be polite and stick with an offensive struggle. The Runnin Bulldogs scored on the final play of regulation against Elon on Sept. 12 to send things into overtime tied at 7, and after trading field goals in the first two overtimes, the Phoenix walked away winners on Corey Joyners 25-yard TD from Connor Christiansen in the third OT. Gardner-Webb returns 10 offensive starters and Elon nine, so bring a good book and pretend these teams wont average 3.1 yards per play for a second straight meeting (Saturday, 3:30 pm). Not convinced? How about this: Missouri and Vanderbilt met last season with a Vegas-installed over/under of 34, the lowest total in the FBS since 2004. Thats 2 1/2 more points than the oddsmakers expect out of this one. Steve Nash Jersey . The Vancouver coach and an announced sellout crowd of 18,910 watched in dismay as the Canucks lost 7-4 to the New York Islanders on Monday night by squandering a 3-0 lead in the third period. Penny Hardaway Suns Jersey . It is a cliché dragged out by fans and pundits regularly when discussions take place around which teams are better than others. http://www.officialsunsfanstore.com/grant-hill-suns-jersey/ . The injury bothered Bledsoe in the Suns victory over the Clippers on Monday and he sat out the teams home loss to Memphis on Thursday night. Deandre Ayton Suns Jersey . Any real chance at payback wont come until the playoff. Still, Pittsburgh knows its taut 3-2 win over the Bruins on Wednesday night is a pretty good place to start laying the groundwork. "They are a very good defensive team," Penguins forward Brandon Sutter said. Kelly Oubre Jr. Suns Jersey . -- Arizona raced out to a big lead and did not back off, hitting the accelerator instead. The U.K. anti-doping agency has sent investigators to Kenya to look into allegations that four British athletes used the banned blood-booster EPO in a well-known high-altitude training region, claims that could increase the scope of the problem in the East African nation and show foreign runners are also doping there.The allegations, made using secretly filmed video footage in a joint sting operation by German broadcaster ARD and British newspaper The Sunday Times and published late Saturday and early Sunday, were of grave concern and of significant interest, UKAD CEO Nicole Sapstead said.We have opened an investigation and are taking the necessary steps to corroborate the evidence and investigate it further, Sapstead said in a statement. I can confirm that this evidence is being treated with the utmost importance and urgency, and two members of UKAD staff are currently in Kenya pursuing a number of lines of enquiry.The four British athletes accused of doping with EPO in and around the British teams high-altitude training camp in Iten in western Kenya were not named, although The Sunday Times said it knew the identity of at least one of them and that the athlete was already under suspicion for doping.The two media outlets said three Kenyan men -- two of them doctors at a hospital in Eldoret, another high-altitude running town near Iten -- told them that they had either provided or administered EPO to four British athletes. Two of the Kenyan men implicated by the reports were arrested last week by Kenyan anti-narcotics officers and appeared in court on doping-related charges.Kenya has been under severe scrutiny over the past four years because of a surge in doping cases involving its runners. Kenyas high-altitude training camps are popullar with top distance runners from across the world, raising concerns that foreign athletes could also take advantage of the areas poor doping controls.ddddddddddddARD and The Sunday Times reported they quickly found an EPO supplier in Iten. Using a hidden video camera, ARD and The Sunday Times secretly recorded the supplier saying he could easily provide EPO for around 60 Euros ($66) a dose.The media outlets reported they found empty EPO packaging matching those the supplier offered them, along with used syringes, in a garbage can at Itens nearby High-Altitude Training Center. At the time, a number of European athletes -- British and Turkish -- were in attendance.We strongly suspect doping in this Olympic year, the ARD reporter said.EPO is a hormone that boosts the number of oxygen-carrying red blood cells and can therefore increase an athletes endurance. It was the banned substance at the center of the Lance Armstrong doping scandal in cycling.One of the Kenyan men who allegedly provided the EPO to British athletes, identified as Joseph Mwangi, said in the sting that he had supplied the substance to around 50 athletes in all, some of them Kenyan and some foreigners training in Kenya.The allegations appear to reflect the overriding problem in Kenya, where men claiming to be doctors or pharmacists have for years been supplying banned substances for cash. World 1,500-meter champion Asbel Kiprop of Kenya, who has not been implicated in any doping, said last week that in one case Kenyan authorities had taken no action after a marathon runner banned for doping identified the doctor who supplied him with steroids. ' ' '