.A year ago, Liberty was preparing to embark on a journey for the ages. The Flames would have a perfect regular season, win the CUSA Championship, and advance to a New Year’s Six bowl game in the Fiesta Bowl. And all of that was under a first-year head coach.
How does Jamey Chadwell and his team fare in the encore? Only time will tell, but, one thing is for certain, the head coach is feeling much more comfortable entering his second season at the helm.
“I think the comfort level comes from everybody that is here wants to be here,” Chadwell said on Wednesday just ahead of the Flames first training camp practice. “I think that’s a big deal. They know the expectations and they know the standards. Last year, we were learning them and they were learning us. It was like you were walking on glass a little bit sometimes to try and avoid. This year, I feel like you can run at it.”
Running at it is something Chadwell wants his team to focus on in 2024. His word of the season for the team is pursue. He wants the Flames to violently attack everything in front of them.
The 2024 version of the Liberty Flames took to the practice field adjacent to Williams Stadium for the first time officially on Wednesday. It is the first of 20 practices prior to the start of game week entering the season opener August 31 against Campbell.
There were a lot of familiar faces on the field led by quarterback Kaidon Salter. He returns from a campaign where he completed 61% of his 290 passes for 2,876 yards, 32 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. He rushed 163 times for 1,089 yards and 12 more scores. That came in his first season as a full-time starter and in the Chadwell spread, triple-option attack. The fact that he could be even better in 2024 terrifies all 12 teams on the Flames’ schedule.
He’s not alone though. Liberty also returns running back Quinton Cooley who ran for 1,401 yards and 16 touchdowns at 6.3 yards per carry. Fellow running backs Billy Lucas and Vaughn Blue are back too.
Some of the returning leaders on defense include Quinton Reese, Jerome Jolly, Brylan Green, CJ Bazile, TJ Bush, Bryce Dixon, Jay Hardy, and Amarian Williams.
There are new faces, as well. 50 newcomers dotted the practice fields at the Indoor Practice Facility and the adjacent outdoor practice field on Wednesday. That has come to be expected in the current age of the transfer portal, but Chadwell isn’t concerned about the number of newbies.
“There’s still new guys,” Chadwell explained. “But they know the standard now because the other guys know what it is, and they talk about it to them.”
Liberty spent much of the spring and summer working on team building to assimilate the new team members with the returners as they all work together to pursue another championship. From playing kickball to just hanging around outside of football, this team has worked to build that chemistry that will be much needed once the season begins.
“Anytime you have a good season, no matter what that is quantified as, the next year is going to be tougher,” Chadwell said. “I think your practice has to be harder. I think the details you are focusing on; you have to make sure you are on those things. Anytime you relax as a coach, they take your personality on. So, I think that’s the biggest challenge is not resting on what you’ve done and not looking backwards.”
This isn’t Chadwell’s first time leading a team to success. He has experience in winning games and having to face increased expectations. At three other stops he has led his team to at least 10 wins in a season.
In 2020, when the head coach of Coastal Carolina, he led the Chanticleers to an unbeaten regular season at 11-0 and a top 10 national ranking before falling to Liberty in the Cure Bowl. The next year Chadwell and Coastal spent much of the year ranked in the top 25 and won 11 games again.
“One of the things we’ve talked about a lot this year is this season is like a horse race,” Chadwell stated. “If you watch the Kentucky Derby per se, they always go through and they are walking the horses up to the paddock, the start line, they go through who the jockeys are, how many times they’ve won the Derby, and this guy has trained horses. They talk about all these great things, but who wins is the one who is the fastest that day.”
The Flames don’t want to focus on the outside noise, the distractions that can come from success. Instead, they are setting their sights on winning each day and focusing on what they can control.
“Every week is about being the best Liberty on that Saturday or on that Wednesday or that Tuesday,” said Chadwell. “Can we be the best version of ourself? If we are, we’re going to celebrate it as much as we can because it’s hard to do. That helps us focus on what we can control because we can’t control if we go undefeated and somebody else thinks this team is better than us. But we can control every time we’re out there. Hopefully, this group will buy into that as much as the last one did.”
Chadwell had a storybook first season at Liberty. Now, he’s more comfortable with his team, his surroundings, and the journey he and his team are embarking on. It might not have a Cinderella ending again, but it will be a journey worth following.
“We’ve got to have a really tough training camp here to put our mindset in who we want to be to handle this journey that we’re going on.”
