Liberty got to bowl eligibility on Saturday evening in Lynchburg, Virginia with a 21-20 win over Gardner-Webb. The Flames had to come from behind in the 4th quarter to defeat the FCS opponent. Here is everything head coach Hugh Freeze had to say following the game, beginning with his opening statement:
“Oh gosh, I like being an ugly 6-1 a lot better than a pretty 4-3. I know that. The feeling in the locker room, I think, is the same. I think everybody knows we need to get better. Me, the coaches, the players, everybody. We haven’t found that right switch yet to get that done, but we’re going to have to do that in a hurry with what’s coming up next. Man, to be bowl eligible for a 4th straight year, this early in the season, I think is a remarkable accomplishment with the schedule we’ve played. I think we’ve played some pretty good teams, and we haven’t played our best football yet. I’m excited to try and see if I can get us to play our best football for the remainder of the season. That excites me. Congratulations to our kids, our fans, band, cheerleaders, administration, everybody, for putting ourselves in a position to play postseason football which has been a priority for us around here.”
FOURTH STRAIGHT YEAR, TO DO IT THIS EARLY KNOWING WHAT’S COMING, HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT TO GET IT DONE TONIGHT?
“Well, every game is important. I don’t think every game is an end all or a be all, but it certainly all adds to your ultimate goals. It’s really nice to be sitting here knowing you have six wins with seven opportunities that we’ve had with what’s coming up because with our injury situation, you know, who really knows what the second half looks like. Hopefully we will get some people back, but you never know. It is quite exciting and gratifying to get it down tonight.”
TRAILING IN THE 4TH QUARTER AND GET THAT TOUCHDOWN TO TAKE THE LEAD, A LOT OF SCREEN PASSES, WAS THAT AN EXTENSION OF THE RUN?
“Yeah, that’s what we had to do to win the game. We’re not throwing the ball with accuracy down the field. We dropped some too now that were good throws. They should have been really explosive plays. I thought those were all good calls. There were some good throws, but then it seemed like those intermediate throws that we had that were wide open those inside cut routes, the throws were inaccurate. That’s kind of who we are right now. Some of our swing throws are a little behind us and kind of taking us a little extra time. Those blocks are not being held long enough. I just decided to try and put some of those quick screens in the run game and see if we can’t sustain a drive with throws that weren’t real hard to make and JB did a good job on that drive.”
HOW ABOUT THE PLAY OF YOUR INTERIOR DEFENSIVE LINE TONIGHT?
“Yeah, I think defensively we’ve certainly been solid all year. You hold teams to 20 points you give us a fighting chance to win for sure, but the third and longs are continuing to haunt us and we have to get that fixed. And the penalties in the first half killed us, whether they were legit or not I don’t know, I couldn’t tell, there were a few of them. I didn’t think the roughing the passer that extended it, we had an interception on that play. I thought the guy ran out of the pocket. It’s hard to tell your kid what to do when he’s actively running out of the pocket. All those pass interference calls, I don’t know how they were, but it seemed like every time we stopped them on third down in the first half we had a penalty. I taught our lesson this week on discipline and we had probably more penalties tonight defensively than my whole career here in a game. I continue to be pleased with the fight of our kids, the resolve of our coaches and resolve to find ways to win games.”
HAVE YOU EVER WON A GAME WHEN YOU CONVERT ONLY ONE THIRD DOWN?
“I don’t know the answer to that one. It’s not fun at all.”
NOT ABLE TO RUN, WAS THAT SOMETHING THEY WERE DOING?
“1 and 9 gave us fits. They had an extra guy in the box a lot, trying to make us throw it which we did and had open guys, I thought, but just couldn’t sustain drives doing that. Those two D-Linemen are pretty dang good.”
WAS DAE DAE A FIRST HALF SUSPENSION OR DID YOU WANT TO SAVE HIM?
“No, I wasn’t trying to save him, but I will leave that between Dae Dae and I.”
THE BOLLINGER THROW BACK TO DEMARIO ON THE KICKOFF RETURN, HAVE YOU PRACTICED THAT?
“Yeah, we’ve practiced it. I wouldn’t have let Tanner call it if we hadn’t practiced it. We thought they were going to sky kick it. Sometimes, when teams sky kick, the coverage is really condensed on that side. The field guy, they did a pretty decent job with it.”
HOW BIG WAS THAT INTERCEPTION FOR DAIJAHN ANTHONY ON THE LAST DRIVE?
“I was really happy for him. He’s had some ups and downs. Just pleased that good things happen to him when you continue to work. Came at a big, big time, for sure. Give them credit, they moved the pocket on us a lot tonight and had a good plan. Converted that dang third and long that made me want to puke, and then he came up with the big play. Happy to see that for him.”
