Here are a few notables from today’s press conference with Turner Gill, Robert Wimberly, and Joe Dailey as they look back at the Virginia Tech game and look ahead to Jacksonville:
1. The quarterback position will continue to be one that gets a lot of attention.
After a week 1 stat line that produced the poorest offensive production in Coach Gill’s time at Liberty, there were plenty of questions regarding both quarterbacks, Stephon Masha and Buckshot Calvert. Both Coach Gill and offensive coordinator Joe Dailey spoke about Stephon Masha’s ability to stay level headed. He’s not an overly emotional player, so despite his poor performance against Virginia Tech, he is still confident in his abilities.
“(Stephon) hasn’t wavered,” Dailey said. “Not much is going to bother him. He’s internally motivated. He doesn’t need me to get after him, he pushes himself hard. He knows that he went against one of the best defenses’ in the country. So, to have any success, is good. Does he want more? Yeah, I think we all did. After the game, he was upset with himself, but he said, ‘Coach, I’m going to keep fighting. This isn’t over, this is round 1.”
“(Buckshot) will play one series (against Jacksonville),” Gill said. “When that will be, we haven’t decided that yet.”
Dailey wasn’t as clear on how much playing time Buckshot will get against Jacksonville. “We haven’t sat down and discussed it, in totality, for this week. We’re going to let this game plan for this week play itself out and make a decision at the conclusion of the week.”
2.Coach Wimberly is utilizing press coverage with his corners this season.
The Flames are going with more press coverage looks with their cornerbacks this season. This allows more guys to get in the box, especially the safeties. Wimberly says the defense’s goal is to make sure they are able to stop the run and with the corners being able to play press coverage it will help them.
Chris Turner
“That’s something we did a lot in 2012 and 2013 when we had Kevin Fogg and Walt Aikens,” Wimberly said. “So, once the talent pool can get to a level where you feel like you’ve got some guys, young men, that offense’s say, ‘you know what, it’s going to be 50/50 or maybe less than 50 I’ll catch the fade route.’ Then, you want to be in press coverage because that allows the safeties to come down and be a little more aggressive and not worried about helping to protect the post. We were young the last 2 years, especially at (corner), so we had to be smart. We didn’t want to put ourselves in bad situations continuously.”
Wimberly was very pleased with the play of the cornerbacks against Virginia Tech, and he said he thought Chris Turner looked like a guy that could compete at the ACC level.
3.Gill was not pleased with the offensive line.
When he was asked to assess the offensive line play against Virginia Tech, Gill was very short and to the point. “Not very good, simple as that.”
Liberty was called for 13 penalties against the Hokies, most of which were pre-snap penalties. 8 of the penalties were false start calls on the offensive line. During the game, the Flames benched starting right tackle Sam Isaacson in favor of true freshman Ethan Crawford. Crawford came in at right guard while the starting right guard, Aharown Campbell, moved to right tackle. This same lineup, with Crawford at right guard, is listed atop this week’s depth chart.
4. Safety Cam Jackson and Kyle Carrington’s status for Saturday remains unclear.
Jackson and Carrington were late scratches last week in Blacksburg. The pair didn’t make the trip to Virginia Tech due to a violation of team rules. Jackson was expected to start at one safety spot, but he was not listed on the 2-deep for the Jacksonville game. When asked about their status for Saturday’s game, Gill said, “still undecided right now, violation of team rules.”
5. The Flames’ coaching staff is preparing for the unknown this week with Jacksonville.
The Dolphins haven’t played a game yet this season, and they are under the tutelage of first year head coach Ian Shields. So, Liberty doesn’t exactly know what to expect from Jacksonville on either side of the ball. Shields was Army’s offensive coordinator from 2009-2013. In 2 of his seasons at Army, the Black Knights led the nation in rushing behind Shields’ triple option attack. Shields has spent the past 2 seasons as head coach of Lenoir-Rhyne, where he compiled a 17-6 record and led the nation in rushing both seasons.
Defensive Coordinator Wimberly
Coach Gill compared their offense to Georgia Tech, Kennesaw State, Army, and Navy. Defensive coordinator Robert Wimberly says he has been doing extensive studying of any film he can get of Jacksonville, Lenoir-Rhyne, and Army.
“Its been challenging because so many conferences have the rule that you’re not supposed to give out film to non conference members,” Wimberly said. “So, we’re going to respect those rules. So, we’re going to YouTube. We had to go back to Army and find some Army film of the previous head coach. So, we’ve been trying to backtrack just to find what could be the thought process. Its going to be a chess match and I really enjoy that because it makes you think.”
The Dolphins have also had a lot of roster turnover, they signed 52 freshmen this year. “We’ve had an opportunity to watch a little Jacksonville film, maybe 2 games, just to try to assess the personnel that they have,” Wimberly said. “Yesterday we got the 2 deep depth chart. So that kind of helps us plug in guys where we think they may be able to go. Then Sunday night, what we did, because they signed 52 freshmen, we went and watched all the hudl’s of all the freshmen on offense that are coming in. Just to try to assess the abilities of those young men. We’re not going to leave any rock un-turned. We’re going to look at anything that we can that can help us be prepared.”
Jacksonville also runs a unique defense. Rich Ellerson, former head coach at Army, is now the defensive coordinator with the Dolphins. “They run a unique defense, you don’t see it often,” Gill said. “We call it a double eagle.”
6. A lot of new faces got playing time for the first time against Virginia Tech.
Numerous new faces made their debut for the Flames at Virginia Tech, including 9 true freshmen. “We planned on playing a lot of freshmen this year,” Gill said. “I thought we had some talented guys, and I’m willing to play some guys precisely on special teams. This year, I said hey if they’re only going to play special teams, let’s play those guys because they’re going to help us in a lot of ways. Eventually, they could help us on the offensive or defensive side of the ball.”
The 9 true freshmen that saw playing time included Brandon Tillmon, DeCarlo Hamilton, Antonio Gandy-Golden, Alex Probert, Jimmy Faulks, Stephen Calvert, Spencer Jones, Mitchell Lewis, and Ethan Crawford.
7. Injury report.
Michael Henderman is listed as “doubtful to questionable,” though his name did appear on the 2-deep for the first time this season. He’s listed behind Lucas Holder at left guard. Defensive lineman Will Brown is out. Ernst Anderson is out for the season and will be having knee surgery soon. Wide receiver Marquis Fitzgerald is out approximately 2-4 weeks.
