Liberty was upset by Kennesaw State on Wednesday night, 27-24. The Flames fall to 5-1 on the season and 3-1 in conference play. Following the game, head coach Jamey Chadwell met with the media. Here is the full transcript from his press conference:

Was this primarily due to penalties?

“Yeah, 100%. Again, that’s on me as the head coach. It’s something obviously I’m allowing. There was two drives, we had them off the field on a 4th down, we get a PI; then, we have them on for a field goal attempt on 3rd and 9 and we get a late hit. That killed us. Then, offensively, we were 3rd and 1 and we get back to back false starts there where we were driving to score. There’s a lot of plays, but ultimately that hurt you in key situations when you are trying to get off the field and get back in the game. I’ve got to do a better job of getting us to play a cleaner game.”

It’s got to be concerning and frustrating this deep into the season to see that pop up again?

“It is. We’ve done a lot that we feel like has helped us in those situations, but in key situations, you know, pressure moments, we are undisciplined. It hurts me to say that. It’s one of our values. I’ve done a bad job of allowing those things to happen and not fixing it. It’s frustrating because it cost you maybe an opportunity to win another game. Credit to them. They wanted the game more. That’s on me, they wanted the game more. They played more together as a team than we did and that showed up. I’ve got to figure out, me and the coaches, we’ve got to get together and just talk about some things. Maybe it’s a wake up call? Or it could send us in a spiral. Our job as coach, is we’ve got to make sure we learn from it and hopefully fix the things that need to be fixed and go forward.”

They were 7 of 14 on third down, what made them so tough to get off the field?

“Their quarterback was 16 of 20. He threw the ball well and had been completing 52% of his passes and tonight he looked like Lamar Jackson out there. I think there’s maybe some scheme things, maybe we didn’t make some plays that we were capable of making, but any time, when you are 7 of 14 on third down, obviously, we’ve got to look inward and see if we didn’t have some right calls or scheme wise from that standpoint. I don’t know exactly how many out of that 14 were they short yardage, were they third and longs. I’ve got to look at those, but that’s not very good.”

They were getting some chunks on first down.

“Without watching the video, they dominated first down. They were in a lot of 2nd and mediums and third and shorts. Then, when we got them in a third and long, whether it was a penalty, or they converted a pass, or some of those things. Credit to them. They obviously played better than we did.”

Was it tough preparing not knowing who the QB is going to be?

“No. Our job is to play no matter who shows up. We didn’t do a good job of playing in a way that allowed us to play the type of game that I think we are. Maybe we’re just not very good either. maybe people are realizing we’re not very good. We’ve got to play cleaner to try and have a chance to win with the current group that we have.”

You talked about not getting burnt by the stove like a child, now you get burned, is it something that can serve as a wake up call?

“That’s what you hope. You hope that you look inward as coaches and players, look inward and say what has got us to this point? Why are we not playing the game the way that I believe we are capable of with the group that we have. Again, that’s me. I’ve got to figure that out that’s what my job is to do and I’ve not done that. It can go two ways. You can look at it and it can get you refocused and you can go play good football going forward, or it can start a spiral. We’ve got to wake up and hopefully not let it spiral.”

A couple of injuries, Treon Sibley, Jay Hardy, any updates on them?

“Jay was a high ankle sprain. High ankles are hard. That’s probably another 3-5 weeks, most likely, we will see how serious it is. Sibley’s was a hamstring. Hopefully it’s not like a major strain, but if it is that’s 3-5 weeks. It’s been one of those years from an injury standpoint where we just have not been able to play full strength for whatever reason. We’ve just had a bunch of little things here and there that have hurt us. The depth that I thought we were going to have, that hasn’t shown up as much because of some of those things. But nobody cares. Nobody’s going to cry over it. Hopefully we can figure it out going forward.”

Cooley only 9 carries, was that part of the game script?

“One, they did a really nice job. We couldn’t get them off the field. They were using the clock. That was part of it. Then, I thought they did a nice job up front, moving, we struggled with their movement O-Line wise. There were some things that we uncharacteristically did that we normally don’t do that I think didn’t allow us to maybe have some of those explosive plays running as you look at it as we’re watching the game, as it goes. It wasn’t necessarily planned that way, it sort of showed up. Then, I don’t know if we handed it off, except maybe 2-3 times where we had a lot of clean, explosive runs. We’ve got to go back and look at that and study it, see what the challenge is and see what we’ve got to improve there.”

Seemed like a decent start, what do you think changed?

“We went up 7-0 and then they converted a third down and made it 7-7. Then, we had a good drive going. We messed up two plays in a row, self inflected wounds where we could have maybe answered their drive and went up 14-7. We had a really good play on and we just didn’t execute it. Then, you punt, and they go score again. It was just one of those. You tie it at halftime, and you come out and we don’t execute a pass play where we had a chance to get a first down. We punt. They score, and we’re always playing from behind right there. We couldn’t get them off the field enough to where you had more opportunities on offense to go do something. I think the second time we got the ball in the third quarter, it was almost over. That shows you what they did a little bit there. Half the quarter was gone when we got it back. Then, after that, they ran it down to maybe the 4th or something. Again, we’ve got to do a better job of getting guys off the field. We’ve got to do a better job offensively executing and not having some self-inflected wounds. 3rd and 1 down there, you got two plays to get a first down with 5 minutes to go. We get that first down there…they call false start on us. I’ve got to look at that one. We looked at it and it didn’t look like a false start. Then, our tackle false started. We go from 3rd and 1 to 3rd and 12. That’s devastating there because you feel like you have a chance to go score and tie it up with 5 minutes to go. We just weren’t able to do it. Then, they went right down the field and got a field goal and sort of put it out of reach.”