Liberty improved to 7-0, the best start in school history, following the team’s, 38-35, win at Virginia Tech. Liberty head coach Hugh Freeze met with the media following the win. Here’s everything he said:
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A PART OF AN EMOTIONAL SWING AT THE END OF A GAME LIKE THAT?
“It’s hard to quantify wins that you’ve had that are like that, but I just know that sitting here today there’s none bigger for our kids and our program, our administration, the vision that Dr. Falwell had many years ago. To not come up here and play the JV team but to play the big boy team and have a chance to compete. Man, I just couldn’t be prouder of the way our kids competed and didn’t worry about the scoreboard and played the next play. We knew we were going to have problems stopping them. I tried to slow the game down and manage it so that we would have a chance late in the game. The plan worked pretty good. I should have ended the game earlier instead of scoring the touchdown we should have taken the knee, but I really thought with one timeout they would tackle us again. We had to get the first to end the game. I was so mad at myself, but now it’s all forgiven.”
WHAT WAS THE THOUGHT PROCESS WITH BARBIR AT THE END THERE?
“We had several plans there, I don’t know that I want to go through the whole deal, but we were either going to take the first down throw and step out of bounds and then try the field goal which ultimately ended up happening. Or Malik was going to run around for 8 seconds way back there and then go to overtime. That was the plan. They brought in all of their big offensive linemen for blocks. From that distance, we actually thought he might get it there, he would have to kick it so low. After I saw who they brought in in their sub package, I didn’t want to try that again. Then, we went and they gave us the first down throw there to step out of bounds inside the 35 which we thought really good about.”
WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT BARBIR?
“He was great today and that’s what matters. We haven’t been perfect all year, as a coaching staff, as an offense, defense or special teams, but we’ve been perfect together. He’s a part of that. Today is really special and it gives him some confidence moving forward because he’s got the leg.”
MALIK WILLIS WAS SPECIAL WHEN HE NEEDED IT RIGHT?
“He’s our guy. We’ve talked to him about ball security. He didn’t make the right decisions today, and then he tries to do crazy things with the ball sometimes. I thought we did a great job of managing the clock in the second quarter. I thought we got some really good plays to call down there if we can ever get down there and I thought we were going to run the clock out and go in there at the half up. Obviously that didn’t work out because we turned it over. I told these kids all week long, we’re going to climb this cliff today and not worry about the scoreboard until the clock was on 0:00. Malik played like that and he played a solid second half, and he made plays for us when he had to.”
DID YOU HEAR THE TIMEOUT ON THE BLOCKED FIELD GOAL?
“I heard it. Our whole line stopped. I don’t know how the white hat didn’t hear it. I saw Fuente he was standing beside the official and called the timeout. I told our kids that was probably going to happen.”
WHAT WAS THE MOMENT LIKE WHEN YOU AND THE TEAM CELEBRATED?
“Extremely special. You don’t get a lot of moments like this, particularly with a school that is trying to build a program that’s just been FBS for a few years. Now, we’ve got two wins over Power Five opponents in year two it’s kind of euphoric really. God has been extremely good to us. We’ve been able to not be too affected by COVID. Injuries have been a little bad at a few positions, but overall pretty good. Man, we’re just thankful we can do it together with a group that loves each other. Obviously, it’s far from perfect, but we stick together. It’s the way they played today.”
DID YOU LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR TEAM TODAY?
“I tell our team all the time, let’s make them talk about us. I like getting talked about and our team’s kind of embracing that so whoever’s the 19 point underdogs or whatever. Here’s what I really believed, I believed that we could move the football. If we took care of it we had a plan to slow the game enough to have a chance to be in it. I did not think we could stop them. No one has. That’s what I thought. What that means as far as how it shakes out, I couldn’t tell you, but I did believe we were going to move the football. We were going to slow the game. That’s the things I did believe. I also believed we couldn’t stop them. That O-Line is one of the better ones I’ve seen even in my days in SEC. That’s what I believed going into it.”
WHAT IS THE KEY TO BEATING A POWER FIVE TEAM? WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN THE ACC?
“I said that in jest the other day and I think some people…I’m going to quit talking about joining leagues I’m going to leave it up to Ian and the administration.”
HOW SPECIAL IS YOUR QB AND ARE YOU SURPRISED HE TRANSFER TO YOU?
“No, I’m not surprised. I think quarterbacks enjoy playing in our system. We fit Malik’s skill set very well and obviously he knew my offense in the SEC. I think that’s why he chose us because he saw it first hand in that league and he was a part of it.”
CAN YOU ELABORATE ON WHY THIS IS SUCH A SPECIAL WIN FOR YOUR PROGRAM?
“To me Virginia Tech, I don’t have facts to back this up, but to me over the last 20 years I’ve got to say I believe Virginia Tech is a top 25 program in the nation. Believing that and knowing the type of players they have, for us to come to their place and get a victory in year two of our full FBS membership, I don’t know if I can really put into words really how big it can be. I already know I’ve got a big job next week to try to get our kids back down to earth and understand how to prepare for another game. You’ve got to handle successes and failures. So far, we’ve been ok, but I think this will be my biggest challenge, for sure, getting them to come off this high. It’s an in-state, Power Five team that affects recruiting and obviously I have great respect for Coach Fuente. He does a great job. They’ve got a great program here. To beat, what I consider to be a top 25 program, not just one or two years, but a lot of years they’ve been there. For us to do that in our journey here is special.”
THE 4TH DOWN PASS, WERE YOU SURPRISED THEY GAVE YOU THAT?
“We had three options. The only option of throwing it was if they gave us the option of throwing it to the boundary for the first down where we could stop the clock and try for the field goal. Other than that, we’ve got to go to overtime. I don’t care how far you run, I don’t care what you do, but use the 8 seconds up and we go to overtime. I was getting nervous because the official was standing over the ball and I knew we had it. I was like please hurry and let us snap it. That’s a tough call for all of us there. They’re thinking hail mary, which I thought about, could have gone to that. That was the third option, hail mary, run around, or take the throw for the first down.”
HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT WHEN VT SCORED THE TOUCHDOWN AND 2-POINT CONVERSION TO TIE IT?
“It was a heartbreaker to me. Scott had a great call. I will watch the film. We should have been inside leverage and there’s no way you get beat on the slant there. We just had a kid not guard his man and run at the quarterback. They made you beat them. Every snap, that’s what good offenses do. We got stops when we needed to. We were playing the 4th ranked rushing offense in the country today. It’s all good now, but it was gut wrenching when you don’t get stops on 4th down.”
WHAT WAS YOUR CONVERSATIONS LIKE WITH MALIK AFTER HIS FUMBLES?
“Those conversations were very simple, ‘Take care of the dadgum ball!’ That’s pretty much what I have to say to him. They didn’t turn it over today, Virginia Tech. We turned it over twice. I think the punt and us turning it over right before half kind of evened out. I think we both scored each time. You’ve just got to take care of the ball, we will keep harping on him.”
HOW MUCH DOES MALIK’S PERFORMANCE GO TOWARDS YOUR WIN?
“Probably should have went a little more tempo. We hurt them when we did that, but I was just so conscious of getting this thing to the 4th quarter, get this thing to the 4th quarter, and be within one score or so. That’s worked for me in my past some in a couple of games where I thought we were outmatched a little bit. Malik knows this about me, while I will yell and scream some, he knows that I have the ability to put the ball back in his hands and trust him. He’s our guy. I’m not going to belabor the point of take care of the ball. I’m going to let him know again, I didn’t think he did a good job on it, and then we’re going to move on to the next series here’s what we’re going to do. He’s like that and he can put it past him. Look, it doesn’t bother anybody more than him when he turns it over. He cares that much.”
HOW DID YOU THINK NOAH AND CJ DID, CEDRIC STONE STARTED AND HASKINS PLAYED CB, AND HOW DID YOU THINK KIDD-GLASS LOOKED?
“I’ll have to watch the film for Tim Kidd-Glass. We actually had a few little injuries that caused some of that movement we didn’t talk about them a lot. Dabney and Haskins both have got a little knee issue with both of them. We’re trying to move some pieces around to make it work on defense. Noah and CJ did great. We could have gone to them more probably. I think they could have won some of their 1 on 1s, but it wasn’t the way we wanted to manage the game.”
*photo courtesy Liberty Athletics
