Football. Tomorrow. The Flames will face Syracuse on Friday night from the Carrier Dome in New York with an 8 p.m. kickoff on ACCN. On Thursday, Liberty head coach Hugh Freeze met with the media to give his final update prior to kickoff. Here are the main takeaways from his media session.

EXCITED FOR THE OPPORTUNITY FRIDAY

Liberty will get the opportunity to play in front of a national television audience from the Carrier Dome in New York on Friday night. The Flames will be one of only five games going on Friday night, setting up for a large stage for the Flames to play in front of. It’s one Freeze says he welcomes.

“I don’t run away from the fact that anytime you play, particularly a program like us that is relatively new on the scene of the FBS world and you get opportunities to play on TV that will be in a lot of homes on a Friday night, there’s not that many games going on the same time that ours is, there’s going to be some eyes on us,” Freeze said. “It’s another big opportunity to continue to build the LU brand, our Liberty football brand. Hopefully we will make the most of those opportunities when we get them.”

THE HUMBLE MALIK

Every time Liberty quarterback Malik Willis gets an opportunity to speak in an interview or press conference, he always says the right things. Freeze doesn’t take that for granted.

“As a coach, it is rewarding to hear one of your players say something and in your mind you go, ‘Yes, he listened to me,’ or ‘He listened to us, he listened to my talk on Monday morning about this theme we have,'” Freeze said when asked about Willis. “I think he’s done a marvelous job of staying humble. There’s an attractive quality about humility in people that are as talented as he is. To this point, I think he’s handled it as well as you could.”

HAPPY MALIK IS MALIK

Earlier this week, Syracuse head coach Dino Babers compared Willis to Lamar Jackson, former quarterback at Louisville and the current quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens. Freeze was asked about that comparison, but doesn’t want to limit his quarterback by comparing him to another player.

“I don’t think it’s fair to Malik to compare him to anybody,” he said. “He is Malik Willis. What he’s done for us here at Liberty will always be appreciated, whether it’s the rest of this season or one more season, I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s fair for me to start saying he’s this or that. I think time will play out and all of that will be clear, but I’m just glad he’s Malik Willis.”

OFFENSE MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

Speaking of Willis and the Liberty offense, after complaining about the unit’s lack of consistency during training camp and early in the season, Freeze says the group is moving in the right direction.

“I think we’re moving in the right direction for sure,” Freeze stated. “This will be the most talented defense we have played. The one game they lost, they still only gave up under 300 yards. It’s crazy, their stats are crazy good. It’s a great challenge.”

“I would love for us to be efficient every time we touch the ball,” he continued. “I have to watch myself with my expectations on that. As inconsistent as I might feel we’ve been, we’ve out-rushed every opponent, we’ve not turned the ball over. Two games we probably only played three quarters to what your offense could do. Bottom line is our scoring offense is around 38 a game or something like that, we haven’t turned it over, and we’ve out-rushed our opponents. You’re going to win some games doing those things. Do I wish we were were consistent every single time? Yes, but sometimes you tip your hat to the guys on the other side that make good plays. I just want the possessions that end either because of me or our players putting us behind the chains in some way, I want those to end, those are frustrating to me.”

PREPARING FOR TWO QBS

Syracuse has played two quarterbacks in Tommy DeVito and Garrett Shrader through their first three games. Their coach Dino Babers has not tipped his hat yet as to who will get the start this week. The Flames have prepared for both quarterbacks, and Freeze is confident in the game plan defensive coordinator Scott Symons has.

“It’s a little different,” Freeze stated of preparing for two quarterbacks. “This is not the first time we’ve faced a team that’s got two quarterbacks. It’s not like it’s made our practices a lot longer or anything. I don’t mess with our defensive guys very much at all. I have trust in them. We will talk between now and then more about our red zone plan and our third down play, but I hare people like that and give them a lot of trust, and they’ve done well with with and certainly would do better than I would. I know what I’m decent at and I know what I’m not decent at. I probably would just mess it up. I think they will have a great plan for whichever quarterback.”