No. 19 Liberty saw its 6-game win streak snapped on Saturday afternoon, 36-33, against the UConn Huskies. UConn becomes bowl eligibility with the win and the Flames fall to 8-2 on the season. Here is everything head coach Hugh Freeze had to say following the game, beginning with his opening statement:

“Congratulations to Jim Mora and his team, they wanted it today a little worse than we did, it appeared. They played a solid football game. It’s frustrating, we didn’t play our best or coach our best. We win and lose together, but congratulations to them on getting bowl eligible. We’ve come a long way in our program to have people get this excited and storm the field when they upset you. They deserve it, congratulations to them.”

HOW ABOUT SOME OF THOSE PENALTIES THAT WERE KEY?

“They were very key. I didn’t see the targeting, they were getting ready to punt, that was a big time in the game. Hands to the face, can’t remember some of the others, lineman down the field hurt, don’t know. I’ll have to look at that too and see, but certainly we were more penalized today than we have been the last few weeks. That hurt, along with the turnovers including one that led to a touchdown. That’s critical when that happens.”

THEIR RUN GAME WAS ABLE TO BUST SOME BIG PLAYS.

“Yeah, we didn’t play well today defensively. That’s the first game this year we haven’t played real well. Obviously when that happens, the offense has to score more points. We didn’t get it done today offensively either.”

WHAT WAS YOUR THOUGHT PROCESS ON GOING FOR IT ON 4TH DOWN?

“Well, we were struggling to stop them. You’ve got one yard that you think you can possibly put the game away with another score. Then, hopefully, if you don’t get it, you hold them to a field goal and you still have the opportunity to go score. Analytics said go for it. Is it the right call? Who knows. We shouldn’t have been in that situation. 2nd and 1 and we throw a fade. He didn’t recognize the down and distance. We practice that over and over again. You hand it off twice and we get the first down.”

DID YOU THINK KAIDON WOULD BRING SOMETHING ELSE FOR YOUR OFFENSE?

“Yeah, he’s a very talented kid. His head’s really not, haven’t had enough reps, I guess. Obviously, the fumble was critical and then we had another play we thought was really good and he forgot to motion a guy. It just felt like JB was the more consistent player at the moment.”

HOW MUCH OF AN IMPACT WAS IT WITH MIKE SMITH BEING OUT?

“It was huge for him to be out and then Ahmad gets kicked out, so you’re playing two inside guys. Jolly hadn’t played any this year and he had to play the whole second half pretty much. Tyren is really not a box player, but he had to try to do that. Losing both your starting linebackers, and they stayed in those heavy, unbalanced sets. You’ve got to have Aakil playing up in the line in our heavy stuff. That definitely hurt.”

DID YOU TRY TO STRESS TO YOUR TEAM HOW DIFFICULT THIS GAME WOULD BE?

“I tried as hard as I could. They are still young men. I don’t think that they didn’t think it was going to be hard. We’ve had some exciting two weeks. You go back on the road, it’s hard to be emotional. I think we started flat and gave them confidence. I say all the time, it’s hard to win college football games. When a team gets confidence and you turn it over a few times, look out, you’re in for a 60 minute battle and that’s what it was. They made more plays than we did.”

IT SEEMED YOU FLIP THE SCRIPT IN THE 3RD, WHAT CHANGED IN THE 4TH?

“We hurt ourselves offensively and they busted some long runs. Defensively, we didn’t tackle well. 4th quarter Arkansas and then tonight I didn’t think we tackled well. Offensively, we hurt ourselves so much. Whether it was a dropped ball here or there, or just something we shouldn’t do. TJ was tired, he hadn’t played. He didn’t run well in the 4th quarter on some runs that should have been first downs, just didn’t have that gear. We really missed Shedro and Dae Dae.”

IT SEEMED A LOT OF PLAYERS WERE SLIPPING, WAS IT SLICK?

“Maybe, I’m not sure on that.”