Liberty saw the 2022 season come to an end with a fourth straight loss on Tuesday night against Toledo, 21-19, in the 2022 Boca Raton Bowl. The Flames finish the year at 8-5. Here is everything interim head coach Josh Aldridge had to say following the game, as well as audio of Aldridge, QB Kaidon Salter, and DE Durrell Johson:
“I just want to start with giving credit to Coach Candle and his team. They had a great game plan, played really hard, I had a lot of respect for them going in and still have a lot of respect for them. Also, I want to give thanks to our administration for giving me this opportunity to stay through this bowl game and help lead our bowl team. They have supported us all four years that I’ve been here in the right way.”
“We just made too many mistakes to win. You look up, we only ran 41 plays on offense, that’s partly because not getting off the field on defense and some things we were doing on offense. Defensively, I thought we played good enough to win, but I think the difference in the game were the third downs down the stretch. We should have gotten off the field, we were getting TFLs in the backfield, they were falling forward a little bit on us and we were losing our leverage in the back end some.”
“Would have loved to have stopped them in that four minute situation and get the ball back to our offense, but that’s just how it goes. For all the mistakes we made, we were still a two point conversion away from being tied. A lot of credit to our guys on defense especially, had a lot of guys who played every single snap with how thin we were. I’m very proud of that.”
COULD YOU TALK ABOUT THE PLAY OF MIKE SMITH TONIGHT?
“He’s one of those guys that played every single snap tonight except a couple third downs. We were short handed at linebacker because of roster stuff currently. This time of year, that’s just the nature of college football right now. I just felt more comfortable with him out there tired than I did some other guys. Really proud of Mike finishing his season. Mike’s had a good year. I don’t think a lot of people understand Mike’s been dinged up the last four weeks of the season. He had a really good start to the season. He’s been nicked up. The bowl prep allowed him to get healthy.”
HOW MUCH OF A BLOW WAS IT TO LOSE SCRUGGS?
“Ankle. Always tough when you lose him because, like I’ve said before, what he gives you isn’t just his ability to make plays, he helps everybody else around him get better. He’s not the General just by nickname, he does do a great job. He’s basically the quarterback of our defense. That hurt, but A’Khori Jones is going to be an incredible football player, probably one of the best high school safeties we’ve signed since I’ve been here. I thought he played well from what I could see on the sideline.”
WHAT DID YOU SEE FROM THE MISSED EXTRA POINT?
“I didn’t see it.”
WHAT DID THEY DO SO GOOD ON THIRD DOWNS?
“It was several things. I think this was our worst third down game of the year, just off hand from a percentage standpoint. It was several things. One time we didn’t adjust correctly. One time we got two guys surround him and we don’t keep our feet. They had a good plan. They didn’t do anything we didn’t expect, by any means, but they still had a good plan. We didn’t get them on the ground, it’s just the nature of it.”
WHAT DID THIS TEAM SHOW WITH THE WAY THEY FOUGHT TO FINISH THE SEASON?
“I don’t think losing the game is a testament to whether or not they had any fight or not. I think they did have fight. We just played the champion of the MAC to a two-point conversion with a very depleted roster. If we had all our dudes out there, there were several guys that would definitely make some plays today and we would have loved to have them. I love these guys. I’ve had the privilege of being a part of every recruiting class since coach got here. I got a very intimate relationship with a lot of them, sat on their couches, seen a lot of them grow up and mature. I think they had a great week of practice. I’m forever in debt to them for buying into what I wanted to have done in a 14 day span. I still think they had a great season. Probably the two biggest wins in school history in back to back games. They will never be able to take that from us. I think they had a lot of fight tonight.”
DID YOU KNOW CJ DANIELS HAD THAT THROW IN HIM?
“I knew we had that in. I glanced down there one time and saw us do that. I didn’t know we were running it just then because I don’t memorize our terminology and things like that. I kept it close to the vest all week that Coach Klenakis was going to call plays. I thought he had a great plan, especially in the run game. I thought we dialed up some really good shots there at the end.”
