The Liberty Flames opened the season with a 48-7 victory over Campbell on Saturday night, and they have now shifted their attention to week 2 and a matchup with the Troy Trojans. The Flames will travel to Alabama this weekend to take on the Sun Belt foe with kickoff slated for 7 p.m. on ESPN+. Liberty head coach Hugh Freeze met with the media for his weekly press conference on Monday and here is everything he had to say beginning with his opening statement.
“Obviously, the truth is always told on Monday,” he said. “The first truth is, I congratulated our team on being 1-0. I don’t ever need to get to a point where you don’t celebrate the times that the scoreboard works out for the way you prepared. So, we celebrate that. I thought it was a good home crowd, good to see our people back. It really made coaching feel somewhat normal again and play somewhat normal again. Thankful for all our great fans that came out and watched us. Hope the crowds will be able to get even bigger and better in future home games. Thankful there.”
“Truth of the game, we played pretty sloppy. That’s really the truth of it. We played high on the offensive line, didn’t play with our pads down very well until the second half. Challenged them a little bit and thought they responded. Penalties were, you can’t win against an evenly matched team with as many penalties as we had. I’ve got to get that cleaned up. We did take care of the football offensively and we didn’t have any sacks, but on the defensive side we didn’t have any takeaways and we didn’t have any sacks. We averaged 5 yards a carry and we held them to 3 yards a carry. So, those are important stats to me. We were 7 of 11 for touchdowns in our 11 drives offensively, which is a pretty high percentage. 3rd down and short, our defense was incredible. Gave up two 3rd and longs which was disappointing. We’ve got to get off the field on those. Offensively we weren’t great on 3rd down stats, but really if you look at it there were a few that we probably would have handled differently in a closer game. I’m not too concerned on that.”
“All in all, I thought it was a sloppy game. There were a lot of kids that I thought had some outstanding effort, but we’ve got to get it cleaned up. I met with both sides this morning, watched the correction film with both sides. It’s good that you can challenge them when you still won having not played very well, really, in my opinion. Good to be 1-0, we will put that in the trash now and start turning our attention to a very difficult task of going to Troy and trying to find a way to win that game.”
CAN YOU GIVE US AN INJURY UPDATE?
“Unfortunately we got beat up a little bit in this game, we’ve got to have next man up mentality. Everybody right now, I think they are seeing some doctors today, but everything right now is day to day with Bounds, Jaivian Lofton, Marcus Haskins, Bryce Mathews. A lot of day to days right now that we don’t have any clarity on.”
HOW ABOUT TRISTAN SCHULTZ?
“Yeah, I don’t think there is anything wrong with Tristan.”
SATURDAY IS THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11, DO YOU REMEMBER WHERE YOU WERE THAT DAY?
“I’m a football coach. I hope that there is still enough of the core of Americans that understand what really happened that day, I hope so. I hope we never forget that. I remember vividly where I was. I was a high school football coach at Briarcrest Christian School. I was also the Dean of Students. My mornings usually were filled with being in the Dean of Students office for student discipline and stuff. The head of our school at that time was a guy by the name of Steve Simpson, he came and got me and I went in his office and just sat in silence with him in an unbelievable, just couldn’t believe what was happening as we watched it unfold right there on TV. The shock that our nation is under attack right here on our own soil. That was certainly sad. So many families had tragedy hit them that day. Obviously America responded and defended her honor. I hope that is all remembered that day. There was tragedy, but America is resilient. I think there is a story probably to be told on both sides of that.”
“Playing football on that day, thank you for reminding me because I get in such a nut shell I probably never would have thought of it or even known what the date was. I just know we play this Saturday. We had a great talk this morning on our themes. That’s something I can add to my Thursday list, for sure.”
GOING ON THE ROAD TO FACE A TEAM WITH A LARGE CROWD IN 2 SEASONS, HOW WILL YOU TREAT THAT THIS WEEK?
“We won’t make much of it other than making sure we have a communication system that is effective. I’ve never tried to give too much credence or credit to a crowd effecting the way we think or perform outside of communication. You’ve got to be able to communicate effectively in those. Hopefully we will thrive on competing in a hostile environment if it is that. I won’t make much of it, just make sure we practice our communication with some noise.”
DID YOU NOTICE THE DEFENSE SETTLED IN ON SATURDAY AS THE GAME WENT ON?
“I thought our defense played well most of the game. They gave up two third and longs and one explosive run, quarterback scrambled around and completed some balls. A little disappointed in our pressure. I was pleased with our run defense. Thought we cut a few guys loose in the pass game, but we had harped all week on trying to make sure we contained this quarterback because of what we had seen on film of him so athletic and running around and making plays. I think it made us a little tentative at both the linebacker spot and the D-Line when it was pass, and our linebackers didn’t get correct drops a few times, kinda spying him and wondering where he was going to run next, and they hit us on some in cuts with that. Certainly think it made us a little tentative, but personally I thought we played solid defensively. I love the run average. Just gave up a few explosive plays and two 3rd and longs were really the only negatives. I thought they played better as a unit for the totality of the game, more so than the offense. Offense first half we just didn’t play very well up front.”
WHAT STANDS OUT ABOUT TROY?
“First thing is the quarterback transfer makes a big difference. You watch the scheme from last year, it wasn’t as effective as it looked this past week with him. He’s an incredibly accurate passer. I remember him vividly. He came to my camp at my previous job. I think he’s out of Arkansas somewhere. He’s a very accurate passer, mature. He makes a difference. You put around, number one, a scheme that is very good. Chip is one of the better offensive guys that I know. We’ve known each other for a long time. He came up through the high school ranks also. Offensively, he is a really good coach, as a head coach also. You put that quarterback in that system with a running back like #0 and #3, and those dang tight ends, and the big 6’5″ receivers. I used to play Troy. I know the kind of athletes they have. It’s going to be a tall task. Like I told our kids this morning, I always tell them dead straight, this game absolutely is a toss up. It can go either way. They can win it, we can win it. I believe that with all my heart. Then, defensively they looked outstanding this past week, they are very aggressive. They have those six transfers from NC State, Florida State, Michigan, Kent State, Maryland. They did well in the portal. They certainly have improved themselves defensively and were very aggressive. We’ve got our hands full.”
TWO MISSED KICKS, DID ALEX JUST MISS THEM OR WERE THERE OTHER ISSUES?
“There are no other issues. I’m not good at coaching kickers. I just know I told him at halftime, I’ve had enough. I don’t want to ever see it again, this idea of let’s half way chip shot it, whatever it was, I don’t care. I’m all for playing the next play. If you make a mistake, that’s fine. I’m not afraid of mistakes, but not seizing an opportunity and going after it. I told him, hit the thing as hard as you can. I don’t care, if you miss it, you miss it, but I have had enough seeing this whatever that was on those two, these let me guide it in there. I can’t operate that way. I hope he listened. It looked like the second half he swung at it. I want that to be the standard operation moving forward. Man, swing the thing, hit it, let’s see what happens.”
YOU MADE THE TRANSITION FROM HIGH SCHOOL, DO YOU TAP INTO THOSE MEMORIES TO HELP YOU NOW?
“Yeah, I’m one of the fortunate ones. It doesn’t happen often anymore with some of the new rules which is unfortunate, that are in place with high school coaches being able to get into college. I feel very fortunate, but I still think of myself as a high school coach at heart. The things that I draw from from those days is high school coaches, even as my day as head coach at a small school like Lambuth, you can’t complain or worry about what you don’t have or who’s got this or who’s got that. You just all pitch in. Staff paints the field, cleans the toilets, mops the floor. You just learn how to make do and overcome. As a high school coach, we might change our offense next year because you just can’t do the personnel, you don’t get to recruit to it. I think all of those experiences play into somewhat giving you the mentality of we will overcome, one way or another, whatever we have to do. I think I’m a benefit of what those lessons taught me.”
WERE YOU MORE PROUD THAT YOU DIDN’T ALLOW ANY SACKS, OR THAT YOU DIDN’T GET ANY SACKS?
“I’ll always take us not giving up sacks. Us protecting our quarterback is vital. So, I’ll always take that. Obviously, I’d love to get some sacks, but if you give me the option I will take the we didn’t give up any every single time.”
WAS THE OLINE PLAYING TOO HIGH JUST IN THE RUN GAME OR THE PASS GAME TOO?
“I thought both, we were too high. Sometimes, if you are in man protection you are going to be high, but if you are in some type of slide protection you don’t have to be that high. You can be physical at the point of attack. I thought we were a little high in that, and certainly run game, they were twisting and doing some things, but the crazy things we’ve seen that from our defense from day one. I don’t know man, we just played high and it was disappointing. I thought our young kids came in and played well – I thought Harry and Adair and Chase Mitchell and Big Ben, I thought all those guys came in and performed well, which is good to see because we will need that depth.”
HOW IS NOAH’S HAND LOOKING?
“We leave that up to the trainers. I don’t decide when he starts getting reps, but my understanding is that they expect him to take reps this week in hopes to play. I hope that goes according to plan.”
ANY UPDATE ON DAIJAHN ANTHONY AND KHALEB COLEMAN?
“Khaleb, I think gets released this week to start the process of actually doing some stuff on running and stuff, that’s still a ways out. I think Daijahn is just like Noah. I think they’ve given him the okay to see how he feels this week and then make the decision.”
