Saturday’s game between No. 25 Liberty (9-1) and No. 14 Coastal Carolina (9-0) has been officially canceled as the Flames’ football program has had to paused all team activities following an increase in positive COVID-19 cases. Liberty head football coach Hugh Freeze met with the media on Thursday to discuss the canceled game. Here’s everything he had to say, beginning with his opening statement:
“What a 2020, man. It’s been a blessing. It’s had a lot of highs, a lot of firsts. Top 25, 9 wins, TV appearances, Power Five wins, we celebrate all of that. So many people deserve a lot of credit of what it took to get to that point. 11 straight weeks with relatively no COVID issues. We think the bubble principle that came about through our administration, our academics team, medical team, strength staff, nutrition, it all worked. Unfortunately, after 11 straight weeks of relatively no issues, somehow, someway we got stung starting last Sunday. It didn’t end up the way we wanted to.”
“We were really looking forward to a top 25 game down at Coastal. I love those type of games. I love the attention it brings to our program. Our kids, I think, would flourish in that competition and have a chance to beat a top 15 team. We prepared as hard as we could under some strange circumstances. Even late into the night last night were still preparing until we got the word this morning from our medical team that felt like we needed to pause football activity right now. It is disappointing, but man nothing can take away the joy of the accomplishments that our kids and staff have gotten done this year in this crazy 2020. We celebrate that a lot more than we will focus though on being disappointed about not being able to compete this Saturday. There’s lessons to be learned from it. I just got off a team meeting with our team on Zoom, kind of went through what our theme was this week like I always do on Thursday. There’s a lot to be learned. You usually learn more when you are walking through a fire of adversity than you do on a mountain of successes. Hopefully this will make us stronger and better and that everyone will stay safe and healthy and get through this, and we can reconvene in the near future.”
WHAT KIND OF BUMMER IS THIS FOR YOU?
“I don’t know that it really matters about me, but I think you know me. I went to bed last night and told my daughters, I had them jacked up and my wife, I said we’re going to win this football game. We’re going to get these tests back and we’re going to with the ones we have, and I think it’s the best plan we’ve ever come up with. We’re made for this moment and it’s going to be an awesome story and we’re going to go win the game. It’s disappointing. I relish these opportunities. They jack me up. I get excited for them. I think our kids would have been ready to play. We would have been short handed some, but it would have made for a great story. It’s disappointing.”
PEOPLE WILL SAY YOU BAILED ON THIS GAME, WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT?
“That’s so far from the truth. Do they say that about every other team? We have a top 25 opponent that we have a chance to go solidify our ranking and have another marquee win on national TV. I’ve never shied away from opportunities like that. I don’t know that people will really say that. I think they understand what COVID is. I’m not really concerned about that.”
HAVE YOU EVER HAD A GAME WITH GAMEDAY THERE?
“I sure have, undefeated at that.”
DID THE ISSUES BEGIN THE SUNDAY BEFORE OR AFTER UMASS? AND CAN YOU SPEAK TO HOW SHORT HANDED YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SATURDAY?
“It was the Sunday after UMass. We haven’t talked about the COVID issues all year long, and we’re not going to start now as far as individuals. We’ve had a minimal amount of issues, and have been very fortunate with that. For some reason, this Sunday it started popping up a little more than what was normal. Which was concerning, but not to a point that anyone…Ian and I talk every day about it, Barry and I, it was disappointing. Some of the ones that were going to be out were certainly key contributors, and then coaching too, I think it’s well documented, I’m not talking about names, but we only had one defensive coach for this week. That was a very interesting challenge. We split practices. Did offensive practices, special teams practices, and defensive practices so that our offensive coaches could also coach the defense. It’s been an interesting week and that’s trying to get ourselves ready to play. Really, again, felt like last night, I just had a feeling that the tests were going to come back good and we were going to play. Then, unfortunately, we get the tests back last night and it was uncomfortable enough for the doctors to say there’s something going on we need to pause.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT TO PUSH BACK AGAINST THE DOCTORS AND SAY LET’S PLAY?
“It’s probably a good thing that they don’t let me talk to the docs. That’s above my pay-grade. That’s where our administration and health professionals, I can’t. I didn’t push back. I would have some with Ian and I know he would have shared my concerns if I thought it was unreasonable, but when you look at the sheer facts after last night’s tests, the health of our kids and the safety of them comes first. There’s something trending in a bad direction. I’m not qualified to say. So, I did not push back at all after last night’s results.”
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF THE ORIGIN OF THIS?
“I wish, but no I don’t. I asked our people this morning, ‘Any idea?’ Nobody can really tell you. Everything has gone really well until this point, it’s just hard to say. I don’t know if someone had contact with someone who came to a game and then it spread throughout our building. I have no clue. I don’t think anybody does.”
IS THERE ANY THOUGHTS TO TWEAKING ANY PROTOCOLS?
“It’s sort of like someone’s life. I think you look at the body of work. We’ve gone for 15 weeks now, 14 of them were consecutive since we started, and the docs have not one time have said ya’ll are on borderline of us pausing activities. Not one time for 15 weeks. All of a sudden in the 16th week of us being together here in our bubble principle, this happens. I think you look at the body of work and certainly we will, but definitely there’s not many things that we will change.”
HOW DO YOU BALANCE OR JUGGLE THE DISAPPOINTMENT WITH THE DESIRE OF HOPING TO PLAY IN A BOWL GAME?
“Juggling, managing young men in a football program is always difficult. Every week there’s something to juggle. This is just another one of those things. Two things I’ve learned from walking through the fire of adversity, one it’s never as bad as it seems and two, you’re capable of so much more than you think. That’s what I told our kids today when we were talking about our theme of the week. We celebrated the accomplishments of this year. We recognized this is a disappointment, but we have an opportunity to hopefully get 10 wins with a bowl berth. I don’t think it will be very hard at all. I think the biggest challenge is between now and whenever we find out we’re going to a bowl game and resuming practice for that. That’s the challenge because there’s a lot of free time, they are on their own. We’ve got to finish academics strong and not being in our bubble like we’ve done academics together because everything’s paused. My concern is not getting them back and ready to play a bowl game, it’s more of between now and then how do we manage academics, eating properly, training, food. That’s the thing that I’ve got to be concerned about. They will be ready for a bowl game.”
WHAT IS YOUR PLAN FOR THE TEAM MOVING FORWARD?
“It’s a mixture (of going home and sheltering). No one’s leaving until we have a couple more tests, or at least one more test, and kind of see if we’ve gotten everything and things have calmed down. Then, we will reconvene after we get those test results this weekend and go from there. I really don’t know the plan until we go through this weekend with the tests and see what they say.”
HOW DO YOU SHARE WITH YOUR TEAM THAT THE BIGGEST GAME THEY EVER HOPED TO BE A PART OF IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN?
“I don’t know that any of them viewed it as the biggest game. I think with College GameDay being there, top 25 matchup, you arguably are right in saying that. They were very disappointed, for sure. I think they anticipate us being in this position again. I think they seem to quickly turn their attention to let’s go get another bowl win and get to 10 wins. I will be the first to say, I told our coaches, I don’t like being face to face with my kids right now. I want them in a room right now with me and I want to see their eyes. You can’t on this Zoom stuff, I can’t see all 105 of them. I don’t like that part. I’ll know more when they let us resume activities and I can get face to face with them and really sense what they’re feeling. It was very difficult for me to sense exactly what they are feeling. The ones that I asked to respond were disappointed that they couldn’t go represent our team and Liberty on that stage. At the same time, know that we’ve accomplished a lot this year and hopefully we will have another opportunity very soon on a similar stage.”
THERE IS A SENSE IN THE PUBLIC THAT POSITIVE COVID CASES ARE A FAILURE ON SOMEONE’S PART. PLEASE ADDRESS THAT.
“Obviously, I don’t know what you know. I don’t read all the things. I don’t know. I don’t see it as a failure on anyone’s part. I look at the body of work and if we were struggling with this every single week to a point where we can’t play a game, you’re going to evaluate. But even then, I know a lot of these teams that are struggling with that, I know the coaches, who’s the failure in? This virus is contagious obviously. You’re dependent upon so many people. You’re not just talking about the 120 guys or 15 guys on our team, you’re talking about everybody that is in this building and everybody that they are around in food services, the training table, it’s very, very difficult to manage. We’ve been blessed. I don’t see it as anyone’s failure that all of a sudden we have a run of the positive tests.”
HAD YOU BEEN IN TOUCH WITH ANY OF YOUR COACH FRIENDS THAT HAVE GONE THROUGH SOMETHING SIMILAR?
“No. Just went back to my high school days of coaching both sides of the ball, had fun doing it. I had a couple people, Coach (Darry) Marshall is here and was able to put him on the field, elevate Ponio, and just went to work to get in a game plan in. I don’t think anybody has the answers because nobody knows your personnel or your stuff. We worked very, very hard though, I know that, of having a very good game plan. Longer hours this week than any week of the year to make sure we had a chance to compete, felt really good about it, but no I didn’t reach out to anybody.”
UNDER THESE GUIDELINES WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO ADD A GA OR QUALITY CONTROL TO A STAFF MEMBER?
“Yes you can replace them under these terms for the period of time that they can’t do their job.”
