Liberty picked up a win on Saturday, defeating Buffalo, 55-27, to open the year at 3-0. Following the win, head coach Jamey Chadwell met with the media. Here is everything he had to say following the game, beginning with his opening statement:
“Very pleased with our victory today. I’m not necessarily pleased with how we played for four quarters. I don’t think we competed the way we are capable of, consistently. Anytime you can go on the road, obviously it’s the first time with us, the coaching staff and the group, to come out, get a win. We obviously started out well, had some adversity, but we really finished there well, especially in the second half.”
“Pleased with the victory but I thought we were sloppy. It really didn’t need to be as close as it was for a little bit because we didn’t execute the way we needed to. There are a lot of things to clean up. It’s always nice to clean up on a victory.”
STRONG START TO THE 2ND HALF, WAS THAT A POINT OF EMPHASIS?
“Defense got an interception, we got a field goal out of that, which was disappointing, but we got points. Then they went for on fourth down, got a stop, got a touchdown. You go from 24-14 and you’re up 34-14 really quick there in the third quarter. That was huge. Obviously we were there the first two weeks in a situation similar. We weren’t yelling, it was just going in the locker room, ‘Hey, you’ve been here. You understand this. Let’s come out and compete the way we are capable of.’ That second half, as far as execution, was way better than the first half.”
WHEN VAUGHN WENT DOWN, HOW DID THAT CHANGE THE GAME PLAN?
“We are obviously very high on him. It’s just an unfortunate situation. He landed on his shoulder. He will be out a little while. He had been playing so well. What happens is, Cooley was banged up, Billy Lucas was banged up. We had a three-headed monster we were going with then everybody gets banged up. It made some challenges. He’s a good player. Vic Venn played more, James Jointer played more, they are going to have to go, obviously, do more of that as we are going because Vaughn is a big loss for us.”
2 MORE INTERCEPTIONS, ALSO DL BATTING BALLS DOWN, HOW PLEASED ARE YOU WITH THAT?
“One of our tenants of our defense is we talk about tips and overthrows, if we can get the ball tipped and that means there’s an overthrow, that means we have a chance. Every time that ball is in the air, our guys think they have a chance to get it. It was impressive. Today, it changed a lot of the momentum for us. There were some 3rd down plays, some 4th down plays, where we tipped the ball and maybe there is a guy open and they don’t get that first down. That’s one thing that we talk about, but we practice a lot, as far as D-Line, Linebackers getting their hands up, that’s been big for us.”
HELD BUFFALO TO 87 YARDS RUSHING, SEVERAL 3 & OUTS, ARE YOU PLEASED WITH THE WAY THE DEFENSE PLAYED TODAY?
“Yeah, I think they did a nice job. Anytime you get turnovers, hold a team under 100 yards rushing, I think when we look back some of those points they got, we had too many PI’s when we’re playing. We did some undisciplined things that I didn’t like. I thought our effort was nice. I thought we executed well. There is so much more that we can do. Rushing was a big emphasis, for us to be able to hold them under 100, you knew they were going to try and do it because we hadn’t been very good at it the first two weeks. It was nice to see us make them have to be one-dimensional.”
KAIDON’S ABILITY TO STRETCH THE FIELD, HOW MUCH DOES THAT ADD ANOTHER DIMENSION TO THIS OFFENSE?
“That one he threw into the wind, I don’t know, 60 yards, I don’t know how far it went. His arm is elite. This is probably the first time we’ve been around somebody in a while that has that type of strength. You can really stretch the field. For him to be able to open it up and make some of those throws has been big for us. Now they have to defend the whole field not just sit on us. They started sitting on us there a little bit and we were able to run by them and get some big plays. He continues to build confidence. He’s going to watch the video and have some plays where he’ll go, ‘Man, I wish I had that one back,’ because he probably had two more touchdowns to be honest with you. We’ve got to get him to where as we play better and better teams, as we get tougher and tougher in our conference, we might not get second chances. We’ve got to learn from that.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL NICK BROWN KICKED THE BALL TODAY?
“I thought he did a tremendous job. We made all our kicks and extra points, he knocked it in with confidence. He had a great week of practice, did a nice job. He’s been in the situation before. He never pouted when it went the other way. He kept just doing his thing. Very pleased with him today.”
HOW PLEASED ARE WITH THE WAY THE TEAM RESPONDED OUT OF THE LOCKER ROOM AT HALFTIME?
“Happy, obviously. We made it close there. A lot of the things we did to ourself. To be able to come out there and get 10 points, I think they made it 34-21, then we just kept going, which was big. My major thing is we don’t need to put ourselves in those situations. There is a lot to correct. Our effort has been great, the attitude, the belief of what our team believes in each other is good. We’ve got to just continue to execute though when it gets tight and execute at a high level. If you look at our penalties today, 10 penalties, that is unacceptable. That allows people to stay in games, or games closer than what you think. It’s going to bite us if we don’t fix it. We need to learn how to play four quarters. If we’re going to be our best every week and try to make a run in this conference, that’s what it’s going to take. We’re not there yet, but it’s good building blocks.”
