LEXINGTON, Va. ? Liberty held off a second half VMI rally to post a 38-26 victory over VMI Saturday before a crowd of 6,813 on Military Appreciation Day in Lexington.

VMI outgained the Flames, 435-425, but was hampered by inopportune penalties, fumbles (6), and also squandered two red-zone scoring chances.

Liberty remained unbeaten in the Big South, going 4-0 in the league and 8-2 overall. With Gardner-Webb's loss to Coastal Carolina Saturday, the Flames captured their second straight Big South football crown.

VMI dropped its third straight game and fell to 3-6, and 1-3 in the Big South.

Liberty senior tailback Rashaad Jennings rushed for 147 yards and two touchdowns and became the all-time leading rusher in Big South history moving past former Liberty back Dre Barnes who competed in the Big South from 2002-04. Jennings now has 3,418 rushing yards for his career.

VMI redshirt freshman fullback Chaz Jones led the VMI ground attack with 98 yards on 14 carries and scored two touchdowns.

The Keydets never held a lead throughout the game, but Jones slammed in from two yards out to pull VMI within 21-19 with 7:15 left in the third quarter. It was VMI's third consecutive score since late in the first half.

Liberty responded with a 10-play, 59-yard drive and capped it with a Brock Smith 1-yard quarterback sneak to extend the Flame advantage to 28-19 with 2:31 left in the third quarter. The Flames capitalized on Jennings' five carries for 37 yards while Smith connected on all three pass attempts for 18 yards.

Jones' five-yard TD run off an option pitch pulled VMI within 31-26 with 2:10 left, but the Keydets were unable to get their hands back on the football for the remainder of the game. An on-side kick attempt failed and gave the Flames possession at the VMI 36. Jennings busted 36 yards up the middle on the next play to score his second touchdown of the day and put the game out of reach. The Keydets fumbled away the ensuing kick return at its own 32 and Liberty ran out the final seconds off the clock for its third straight win over the Keydets and a assume a 5-3 lead in the series that began in 1995.

The Keydets, ranked second in the nation in scoring, rolled up 372 yards on the ground and held a 35:40 to 24:20 advatage in time of possession, but VMI converted just 7 of 17 third-down tries on the afternoon.

VMI recovered a Jennings fumble at the Flame 38, on Liberty's first play of the day, but was unable to get on the scoreboard as the drive ended on downs at the LU 10.

The Flames opened the scoring covering 63 yards on three plays and hitting paydirt when Smith connected with wideout/QB Mike Brown for a 53-yard TD bomb with 5:16 left in the opening quarter.

The Keydets responded with a 38-yard field goal by Greg Stevens at the 5:16 mark ? a drive that was keyed by a 53-yard burst by junior slotback Zach Collins that moved the ball to the Flame 24.

Liberty assembled back-to-back touchdown drives of 38 yards and 74 yards to extend the advantage to 21-3 with 12:44 remaining in the half. Smith tossed a 19-yard TD pass off a bootleg to tight end Cory Rasberry and Jennings ripped off a 32-yard run to cap a three-play drive.

VMI moved the ball to the Liberty 1 with six minutes remaining in the half, but quarterback Tim Maypray's fourth down dive was denied just outside the goal line. The VMI defense stepped up, however, and dumped Jennings into the endzone for a safety two plays later to make it 21-5. Liberty kicked off and the Keydets' Bobby Epps returned to the LU 46 before using a combo of Abegesah, Rainey-Wiles, and Maypray runs to produce an eight-play scoring drive capped by Maypray's 11-yard keeper to cut the Liberty lead to 21-12 at halftime. 

Liberty junior linebacker Wes Cheek led all tacklers with 13 stops while Nick Hursky and Kevin Richard each had 11. Redshirt freshman linebacker A.J. Gross had nine tackles to lead the Keydets and sophomore linebacker Kyle Nikmard had eight tackles. 

VMI plays its final road game of the season next Saturday at Stony Brook in a game that will be televised by MASN at 3:30 p.m. Liberty will host Gardner-Webb in Lynchburg at 7:00 p.m.   

GAME NOTES ? VMI freshman kick return Rajah Jenkins moved into third place for most kick return yards in a season and now has 651 yards, behind #1 Tim Maypray (889-2007) and Kevin Solomon (750-2002).

VMI HEAD COACH SPARKY WOODS ?

“First off, I want to give credit to Liberty.  They're an outstanding football team.  They have a lot of skill guys, they're an experienced team and a very physical team.  They're very impressive in every way.  We knew that we were going to have to play our very best to have a chance to be in it with them.  We played hard, but we didn't play very well.  You can't fumble the snap from center, and you can't have as many penalties as we had.  We gave up some big plays.  Now, some of them they surely earned, they went up and caught the ball.  But there were a couple that we kind of vacated our zone, and they found it, as good teams do, and took the ball down and scored.”

On positives for VMI coming out of the game

“Right now, we're growing up.  I feel bad for our seniors, all four of them, because they're trying really hard, trying to lead the football team.  I think we're better (than last year), but it's unfortunate that we're not winning football games.”

On Liberty's third quarter scoring drive after VMI cut the margin to 21-19

“That was certainly a big point in the game for Liberty, and us cutting it to two points was really big for us.  They rebounded and counter-punched as good teams do, and they came back and scored.  I thought that they were pretty much in control of the game the whole time, we never really became a big threat until then.”