Liberty head coach Hugh Freeze met with the media following the Flames’ annual Spring Game on Saturday morning. It was a spring game dominated by the defense as the Flames move toward the end of their spring practice. They have one more practice on Monday before ending their spring session. Here is everything Coach Freeze had to say on Saturday, beginning with his opening statement.
“I’m not a spring game fan,” he said. “For a cool Saturday morning at 10 o’clock, I thought the number of people that were here was quite impressive. I don’t know. I’m thankful for that, the support. I’m sure a lot are families that want to see their kids, but it was pretty impressive to me to see. We had over 200 recruits here and a bunch last night that we had a night with. It was a good weekend.”
“I thought our play offensively was atrocious pretty much, for most of the day. I think our defense has a chance to be pretty good. We created some scoring opportunities, but got behind the chains a lot and of course have a lot of kids out right now too. We held a lot of them out.”
“I was really pleased, I’m going into my 30th season this fall, I believe, and I really don’t remember a spring where we had 14 better practices with attitude, effort, demeanor, chemistry, obviously execution is always questionable from days to days, you’re learning, but I really thought our kids brought in to giving us 14, to this point, great days of effort. I think that’s a really good place to start in building a new DNA of a new season of a new team.”
“I think most of you know how I feel about spring ball. I’d rather have the days when summer gets here for OTAs or something with all the kids because you just seem to always get a few hurt here and there. I’d rather them just be with Dom and let’s do some summer walk throughs and stuff getting ready for camp. Being as it is, I think we had a very solid spring practice.”
HOW’S THE QUARTERBACK BATTLE LOOKING?
“That thing’s going to go into game week. I just think it will go into game week. I think all four have had good days and all four have had bad days. I do think I’m cautiously optimistic. I think we will have several ready that can perform.”
NO DWINDLING DOWN OF THOSE GUYS NOW?
“No, I’m not ready. Kent (Austin) and I will meet. We will watch all of film cut ups next Tuesday and Wednesday and have the total grades and all of that. I think coming into fall camp, we probably still unclear. I kinda have in my mind three, but not sure a fourth one couldn’t do it too.”
“I think kids are different when the lights come on. I have a sneaking suspicion that a couple of these guys, when it gets real, may change a little bit. I’ve had that in the past. Ryan Aplin at Arkansas State who shattered every record there, was awful in practice. Bo Wallace at Ole Miss was terrible in practice at times and he broke all of Eli Manning’s records there. I have a sneaking suspicion that we might have a couple that are like that.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE GROWTH IN THAT ROOM THIS SPRING?
“I don’t think you can ever feel like you are as far a long as you want to be in that room. We just lost, what appears to be, a first round draft pick. I don’t care where you’re at, you lose a first round draft pick at quarterback, there’s very few people in the country that just roll out another one, I would say there are five or less that do that on a regular basis. Obviously, you’re not ever as far along, but there’s no doubt there’s been growth there. Very few of those have had to take reps in our system because of Malik. JB probably has the best grasp of it all. I think you can win games with JB. There’s other things that Kaidon can do and Nate can do, and Charlie, the guy’s thrown for over 10,000 yards. I like our guys. How we’re going to determine which one or two it is, it’s going to be hard.”
IS THIS WHAT YOU’VE SEEN FROM THE DEFENSE ALL SPRING?
“Yeah, I think we’re going to be pretty good on defense. I think our front is a talented front and we’re deep. I love what Josh and Jack are doing together, some of the new stuff that they’re doing that I think is going to benefit us from the back end. I think we got better at corner this spring. I think we’re more competitive on balls there and doing a few other things to give them a little more help and relieve some pressure off them at times. I think you win with defense and good quarterback play. I’ve said that every year here. We’ve gotten better and better on defense and been pretty decent at quarterback from Buckshot through Malik. I think our defense is going to be the strong suit. I do think we’re going to be able to run the ball some. I think Dae Dae is going to improve us in the running game. Of course we had TJ and Shedro both hurt, obviously I believe in those also.”
HOW DO YOU THINK NAASIR WATKINS AND REGGIE YOUNG FARED?
“I would think that they steadily progressed and moved up the depth chart all spring. Obviously, Cooper had shoulder surgery so he hasn’t been with us. Brian Hannibal was having a really good spring too and he got injured, but Naasir and both Reggie I think improved not only their play, their understanding, but they put themselves in a really good position coming into camp.”
HAS CALEB SNEAD PROVIDED WHAT YOU ARE HOPING FOR?
“I think he will. The learning curve has been a little slower, but you saw today, he made a couple plays and probably could have made another one early on on a RPO. I believe he is going to be a really good player for us. He is still learning technique. He is still learning some of the system, but I do believe he is going to really help us. It will be nice to get both CJ’s back and Demario to go with him, that will help us a lot.”
YOU’VE ALWAYS TWEAKED YOUR OFFENSE BASED UPON YOUR QB, GOING INTO THE FALL WITH 4 GUYS, THAT FEELS LIKE A LOT OF WORK FOR YOU.
“It’s really not. I know if it’s a Buckshot what I’m calling and what I’m not. I know if it’s a Malik I know pretty much what his strengths are. If it’s a JB, that’s more of the Buckshot world. If it’s Kaidon, that’s more of the Malik world, probably. If it’s Nate, he can do a little of both. If it’s Charlie, it’s probably more of my Bo Wallace type plans. But it’s not like they have to learn a new offense or new verbiage, it’s just the calls would be specialized more so to those talents.”
WHO DOES NATE REMIND YOU OF AT QB?
“He’s a little different. I think he’s a gamer too. You throw on that game last year and he looked natural, he ran physical, he threw. I don’t know if I’ve had one, I haven’t had one that tall for sure, I don’t know. He’s a little different.”
CAN YOU RECALL A PREVIOUS TIME WHERE YOU HAD 3-4 QBs THAT YOU FELT LIKE YOU COULD USE?
“No, never. It’s never been quite like this. I can’t remember any years. It’s always been one or two guys. Kent and I are going to have to sit down and have a discussion next week. I really don’t know that we’re going to clear a lot up with those discussions. I have a gut feeling what I think it will be, but I’m not near ready to say that.”
YOU MENTIONED 200 HS RECRUITS ON CAMPUS, HOW VALUABLE IS IT TO SHOW OFF YOUR PROGRAM TO THOSE RECRUITS?
“I don’t know if I’ve ever coached at a place that show better than Liberty. I think people sense that the environment is a little different. I think they sense that there is a confidence growing here and that, obviously, the commitment level from our administration by what they see, the tangible things they see and feel. You combine that with winning, I think this place shows as well as any that I’ve ever been at. I had too many families stop me on the way in here, saying we’ve been to XYZ and it’s a different feel here. I’m not saying that’s right for everybody, but I do think it’s ok to be different. I think people sense that here. You’ve got to get them to campus for them to see that. This is one of the big targets. I’m not huge on trying to convince people to try to come all the time, but there are certain target dates. One is yesterday and today. Then, we will have a big push for that 10 days or so that we have camp to try to get them here. That will lead into, obviously, we want them to come to our games. Then, weed it down and get the official visits. It kinda starts with days like today.”
“We had a lot of kids here that we have to still evaluate, recruiting. We have seven here that we know we want. It was great for me to spend time last night and this morning with them.”
WHO DO YOU HAVE WINNING MARTINSVILLE TONIGHT?
“Well, I can’t sit on camera and not say the 24 and the 47 are who I pull for. The 47 is usually not real good at Martinsville. The 24 I think I saw where he started 4th or something, so that puts him in good position. I thought we had one last week, but I knew his tires were bad there at the end, but he got another top three, I believe. We’re always pulling for William Byron and the Hendrick team. Hopefully they will do well at Martinsville tonight.”
“What a great day. I got spring game, I’m glad spring is over and we can get every one healthy. Then, we’ve got Masters this afternoon and Martinsville tonight, that’s a great day.”
THE BIG WORD YOU TALKED ABOUT WAS DECISIONS, WHY WAS THAT SO IMPORTANT?
“I teach a class every Monday. The series was Words from a Father. It was words that I would want my daughters, or, if I had sons, which they are like my sons, words that I would want them to know and discuss what these words really mean. This week’s word was decisions. I firmly believe we all have to have a filter to which how do we make decisions. We live in a world where there is a lot of things pulling at all of us, particularly the younger generation. Decisions for this week, I’ve got one more next week to teach. Between now and fall is when I’ve seen a lot of teams DNA change because of poor decisions. Whether it’s academically or socially or in a relationship that goes wrong. We’re faced with all of that. We as coaches we shouldn’t run from it. We should try to be transparent and try to help our young men have a filter of how they want to make decisions and hopefully they are wise ones.”
