Liberty head football coach Jamey Chadwell held a press conference with the media to discuss the 2024 signing class. For more signing day coverage, check out our Signing Day Live Blog. Here’s everything Chadwell had to say about his signing class:
OPENING STATEMENT
“We signed a total of 18 prospects to NLIs today, that would represent 9 states, 10 offensive players, 8 defensive players. Credit goes to our recruiting staff, they did a fantastic job led by Devon Doyle, Colton Korn, and Jenn Tull. They did a fantastic job of helping us identify who we thought were great fits for our university. First and foremost that was the best thing we talked about, who are great fits for what we’re trying to accomplish here and what we’re going to accomplish here. These 18 we felt really strong about and the coaches identified and evaluated and felt they were the best fits for us to continue to put ourselves in position to be Conference USA champions and to also play for the College Football Playoff. We feel really good about the class.”
“Everyone always asks about how excited we are about the class, I’m excited about the quality of people. We believe wholeheartedly to be good players but once they get here we will see. Out of those 18, 15 of them are mid-year signees. That means they will be joining us here in January. We are excited about that. That adds some immediate impact for spring ball and can see where they fit.”
“When you go about building a class, you go about filling needs. Every position was a position of need. We definitely wanted to supplement with us losing some guys here after the season. We definitely want to supplement as we continue to go on. I would expect us to have some more people to the fold here by the time we get January. The thing I’m excited about this class is they bought into us before we started winning. They bought into the vision of this is what we’re building, this is what we believe we can accomplish. The majority of these young men committed to that vision and that belief without seeing the fruits of it. Obviously, now going through the season they got a chance to see what we believe we can do and what we believe we can be about. It excites me they wanted to be a part of the foundation of building this program. This class wanted to do that. Looking forward to getting them on campus. They all come from quality families. We are excited for them. Big day for them and their families.”
ON QB JAYDEN BRADFORD
:”Anytime you play at a place like IMG with the number of talented people they play, the way they run their program. He is college ready from a stand point of practice repetitions, the things they do on a daily basis to get ready to play against a national schedule. He’s played against some great people. The thing that excites us about him, we know he’s talented, but he loves football. He understands the time requirement that it takes to go into being a quarterback. Is he going to come in here and be perfect? No. He’s obviously got to grow. It’s always a challenge from high school to the next level. Every time he’s been up here, all he talks about is what he can do to improve, the mindset of quarterback. That excites us from where he’s coming from, the type of level he’s played at, but also he just loves ball. We think he’s a great fit for our system and that he will come in. He will be here in January. He will get tons of reps this spring and has a chance to see where he’s at right away.”
ON THE 4 JUCO SIGNEES
“The reason why you mix in some Junior College guys is you do immediate help. You are either losing somebody that has played a lot, maybe you don’t have a lot of the depth at that position or the depth you do have is relatively new and they’ve not had a ton of experience. Anybody from Junior College that we are bringing in is trying to replace somebody we lost, whether it’s in graduation, whether it’s anticipating that to happen in the future, so that we can have somebody that has played at a high level that has experience and understands what college football is about. All those guys we signed are positions of need whether we have lost some people, we are anticipating losing people, and they know what they are coming into. We expect all four of them to be here in the spring and contribute and have a chance to play a lot for us if they are capable of doing the things we think they are.”
“People go why did you go against the portal, the thing about Junior College guys is they can sign with you, you know you’ve got them for a little bit. The challenge with the portal is we will try to bring those guys in as well, you can’t lock them into anything until school starts. We identified guys from Junior College that we felt good about, that we think can help us. We identified them relatively early and we’ve been on them a lot of these guys for a while because we knew we were losing some people at key spots. It was good for us to identify them and actually be able to bring them in.”
ON THE 2 TIGHT ENDS, ELI SISSON AND DUCE HEWITT
“If you’ve paid attention, we obviously like to use our tight ends, whether that’s two tight ends at a time. It’s a big need for us as far as we are developing. We’ve got Bentley Hanshaw, Austin Henderson was here, we’ve brought in a couple of guys but we lost a lot. We had Bo Burklow, a freshman, we needed to build some quality depth there. The great thing about those two guys is they are combo guys, they want to block, they can do the catching piece. They are going to be here in the spring, they get a chance to learn from some older guys in the program. I forgot about Jacob Jenkins, Jacob Jenkins is here. They’ve got a chance to learn from that. Those guys are our future of that room. Coach Cody Ladutko did a fantastic job of identifying the needs there. Identifying those two. Those were our top two all year long. He did a really good job. They are both from the state of Tennessee. Excited about bringing them in.”
ON THE WRS ERIC SMITH AND JON MONTEIRO
“Eric can really, really run. Eric can run. He’s been here on campus for track. He can fly. One of the things we wanted to identify from that position, we needed somebody that when he got the ball in his hands he can take it the distance. He makes people miss. That’s the one thing he has. He has to get physically stronger for this level, but once that happens, with his speed and the way he can handle the ball and the different things he does. He has special, special talent. That was something Coach Washington and the offensive staff identified early on, we’ve got to get some speed guys that can really go. He is one.”
“Jon Monteiro, from Massachusetts, we also wanted to identify we needed a bigger body that can be what we call our X receiver, our boundary receiver. One that is one on one and you’ve got to go win a match. We needed somebody that had the ball skills and physicality to do that. We were able to identify that coming off a state championship. That was the goal from the receiver stand point to identify some speed, younger speed, like a freshman coming in and a bigger body receiver coming in and we can develop.”
“Now, we need some older guys, as well, to try and fill out the class. We’ve still got some scholarships left right now and one of those will be going with a receiver.”
ON RB CADEN WILLIAMS
“What makes Caden an exceptional player, he’s a physical back, he’s a big back that can run between tackles in the box. He does a great job in the box, but he also has enough speed where he gets something on the outside he can go a little bit. He’s a good combo for us. From our back stand point, you want someone who can run through tackles in the box, but can also have enough speed to get outside if it’s a pitch or whatever it may be. He’s a big physical back. Coach Isaac does a fantastic job with our backs. He will be the guy that can come and learn from Cooley, come in and learn from Billy Lucas, a bigger body type back, and James Jointer. He will help compliment that. Having 4 years was important to us. After this year, Cooley is a senior, Billy is a senior, and you are trying to continue to build that depth and get your running back room the way you want it.”
ON RONALD MOORE AND DEVIN HENDERSON, 2 DBS
“Ron and Devin are two tremendous players. Devin is a safety there from Cass High School in Georgia, helped lead his team to a quarterfinal appearance, did a fantastic job, he played offense and defense. A great football player, comes from a great family. He’s going to be a safety for us. We think he is going to be a tremendous player for us.”
“Ronald, from Spalding High School, had a great playoff run as well. He can play corner, he can play nickel, he is a really talented player. They both have great personalities, great fits for us. They were our biggest cheerleaders throughout this recruiting process. Once they were on board, everything they were trying to do was bring the best class possible. They will definitely add athleticism back there, they will add a lot of talent. They will add some confidence too. What I mean by that is they believe in themselves and we believe that those guys have enough talent, if the spring goes well and the mental makeup matches their physical skills, they will have a chance to contribute early.”
ON THE THREE HIGH SCHOOL OFFENSIVE LINEMEN
“What you are trying to match up, it is harder to do nowadays, you try and project how your classes match up, it is challenging to do. As we went through it, we need tackles, we need a guy that can play a guard and tackle, and guy that could potentially be a center or guard. We identified those positions and then we tried to find the best fits for that.”
“Rex can play center/guard. He’s that type of body. He has a great mentality. Just gets after people on video. He’s got an unbelievable mentality that Coach Durkin loves. We identified that.”
“Blake and Izaiah are both tackle bodies that could potentially play guard if you needed to. We needed to get guys that we could put weight on and could develop where our current crop starts moving on that we’ve got guys developing underneath them. Coach Durkin does a fantastic job in developing offensive linemen, as y’all saw this year. We are excited about them. Two of them are coming in early, which is huge. That gives them a chance to go through spring, gives them a chance to understand what it’s about and we can start the process.”
ON THE 2 LBS, KAIDON WHIDBY AND SENECA MOORE
“They can both really run, from that stand point. Linebacker position in today’s college football, you’ve got to be able to run sideline to sideline. Secondly, they both come from tremendous families, they helped lead their teams to successful seasons, and they are really good fits for us and what we are trying to ask our linebackers to do. They both have good size. We just don’t have a lot of young guys there. You don’t want to get into a position where every year you are doing transfers to fill spots. We’ve had to do that because of losing so many when I first got here. Then, once you do that, you’ve got to do it again until you get that room right. We will try to get out of that carousel, so to speak, these two guys we think have a bright future for us.”
