As Liberty gears up for Saturday’s game against North Alabama, Hugh Freeze met with the media on Thursday to give an update on his team’s week of practice.

Below are the 5 most interesting comments from Freeze from his Thursday press conference …

WILLIS SOUNDS GOOD TO GO

“He looked good today. The brace came in. He’s good to go. Is it the smartest thing to do to play him this soon, still having some swelling in it? I think we’re still debating that. He wants to and he looked ready today.”

UPDATE ON COVID TESTING

“We’re still kind of going back and forth with that. Some weeks the tests are Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, some are Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. So, we’re kind of experimenting some.”

“We’ve been very blessed. We’ve had very, very few cases. We’ve been without very few people because of COVID thus far, and, hopefully, that will continue to be the case throughout the season. I will consider us very, very fortunate and blessed if that’s the case, because you certainly see it affecting a lot of other programs and places. So far, we’ve been very fortunate.”

LEARNING TO PLAY AS FAVORITE

“I think this will be a good test to see what the leadership of our team is like and what they demand of each other. The team meeting this morning was all based on my experiences in games where you are favored. That means zero on paper to me. It simply means it’s a test for us to see if we can still prepare and execute in a manner that gives us a chance to win the football game.”

“Football games are hard to win. The value of this win is the same value as last week’s win. I’ve been on both ends of the curve of being an underdog and being able to win a game, and I’ve been on the other end being a favorite and had an underdog either beat me or play us to where it was so ugly that you were miserable the whole game and made everybody around you miserable.”

“I told them the choice is theirs. On paper, we should win the football game. I’m always honest about that. I tell them if it’s a toss up or we’re the underdogs or we’re the favorite.”

“It can immediately become a scary game if momentum gets on their side and we don’t take care of the ball. I’ll be really curious to see what our response is to getting to play another game and knowing, hopefully, knowing it counts the same as the last one and it should be approached with the same sense of urgency.”

THRILLED ABOUT GETTING ESPNU OPPORTUNITIES

“Huge. I don’t know how else to describe it. Thankful to our administration, Ian and those guys, working closely with ESPN. I tell our kids, this time last year I don’t know that you’re the one they choose to put on if they have an opening. I think it’s a great step in the right direction. Obviously, with that comes the opportunity to present yourself very well on national TV, particularly at home. We’re getting a heck of an opportunity again next Saturday and that’s huge.”

CONFIDENT ABOUT RED ZONE PLAN

“In the film room, we’ve certainly evaluated every play that we really feel good about in the red zone and hopefully it shows up on Saturday.”