Liberty has officially concluded training camp and have transitioned to a typical game week practice schedule. Following Tuesday morning’s practice head coach Hugh Freeze held a press conference. Here’s everything Freeze had to say during his media session beginning with his opening statement:
“I think this is the toughest time, I really do,” he said. “When you are in week two, it gets a little tough but you have that scrimmage on Saturday to kind of look forward to. Then, they get hit with reality yesterday, up at 6, but now there’s no break when we get through practicing because they have class now. This is, to me, the most difficult week through probably Thursday then it starts up-ticking a little bit. It’s that time where you’ve got kids out with various things, injuries or nagging things. I wasn’t pleased with today, but I’m sure the film will show it was not as bad as I felt, but it certainly wasn’t consistent on either side. It could be my mindset. I don’t think I’ve ever, in all my years, had a great practice the first day of classes.”
DO YOU HAVE AN UPDATE ON INJURIES?
“Noah (Frith) had surgery on that bone in his hand. I’m being told, we think that’s probably he might be back by game two, three, something like that. I think (John) Kourtis is the same way with the sprained MCL. I think Elijah (James) will be ready for game one as will Skyler (Thomas). Aaron (Pierre) will be questionable for game one but nothing that is long term. (Deon Biggins) had to go back out. He’s struggling to get himself exactly where he wants to be and where we need him to be. Hopefully he will be back at some point next week.”
YOU HAD A LANDMARK YEAR LAST YEAR FOR THE PROGRAM, HOW MUCH DO YOU FEEL LIKE THAT WAS WHERE YOU ARE OR WHERE COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS? HOW HARD IS IT TO REPLICATE THAT?
“I don’t know that I know the answers to any of those. I thought we played good football last year and beat some good teams. Coastal was a top 15 team, Virginia Tech was a solid team. We beat some good teams, got better as the year went on. I thought it was a special year. Obviously, I wish we would have had the fans there to enjoy it with us in the stands. Now, the challenge is to continue to build on that. The thing I have told everyone, I don’t know what that looks like in the win/loss column. I really don’t get hung up on that. This year’s schedule is totally different than last year’s schedule. We’re playing some really tough Group of Five schools and some Power Five programs that are strong. It’s a difficult schedule. Seven wins, six wins, we may feel like we achieved as much as we did with 10 wins last year, so everything is kind of relative.”
“In order for us to repeat it, would be consistency in our approach and preparing. Hopefully I will see that as we get started into game week next week.”
HAVE YOUR GUYS DEVELOPED A MENTALITY THAT LAST YEAR IS WHO YOU ARE?
“I hope they got confidence from that, but I also hope they understand that last year’s DNA is over. It should give us confidence and belief that our program is in a position to be competitive week in, week out with whoever we are playing, but certainly last year is not going to grant us any type of success this year without the same approach, same work, and hopefully we get a break here and there and stay relatively healthy and don’t get affected by COVID and all of those things. Your approach better be the same as last year. I thought last year’s team approached each game, forgetting what the last one was, whether it was good or bad, and prepared very well. Hopefully this year’s team will learn from that. Your chances of having success defined by the scoreboard are much better if you do that.”
WHO IS WORKING AT BACKUP CENTER WITH KOURTIS OUT?
“(Bryce Mathews and Harrison Hayes) will both get ready to play it. Both are backup tackles also. You’ve got to have three guys prepared to be center, so we are working both of those there. They both will get equal snaps, probably at both tackle and at center getting ready to help us there if needed.”
HOW MUCH BUMP IN RECRUITING DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’VE GOTTEN FROM WHAT YOU DID LAST YEAR?
“That always helps in recruiting. If you have success on the field, I think we are probably going to have two games that were in ESPN’s top 25 games of the year. I think they’ve already played the Virginia Tech one, and I’m sure the Coastal one, which was ranked probably one of the top bowls to watch, will be in there. You combine success and some national exposure that we had, I think it’s definitely beneficial to recruiting. I think some of the reasons we landed people like Skyler Thomas or Storey Jackson or Duron Lowe it had somewhat to do with our success. I think our staff is pretty good at building relationships too, but relationships alone are difficult to overcome with zero success. I think it was a good combination.”
WHERE ARE YOU ON THE WHOLE SUPER CONFERENCE DISCUSSION?
“No one has asked my opinion. I don’t know enough about it. I really don’t, I have no clue what is going on in that world, but I know Ian does. Just include us in something, give us a shot.”
HOW’S YOUR GOLF GAME?
“It was good in the summer, but it is non-existent right now. I will start back trying to play once a week once we get in season mode.”
WHAT’S YOUR MAIN FOCUS THIS WEEK?
“Like to get us healthy and get everybody back out there and obviously clean up our protection issues that we are having, drop issues that are inconsistent, defensive fits have been pretty good. We are still giving up a few too many explosive plays. Would love to get some of that corrected and at the same time start introducing our opponent. That’s the plan, starting tomorrow, and situational football. Really going to spend a lot of time, today was overtime situation. Two-minute tomorrow, last plays, just every scenario you can think of I have written down between now and next week. We will take a six minute period every day and spend time on that, if not more.”
SINCE THE BOWL GAME, HOW MUCH HAS MALIK WILLIS CHANGED OR GROWN IN YOUR EYES?
“It’s hard for me. Let’s wait and see him play a few games before we cast where he is, good or bad. I love his maturity. I love his humility. I think he’s approached things the right way. He has been a little inconsistent. He had a little tendinitis. We held him out for a while. Looked sharp today in skele. I’m confident and hopeful he is going to have another special year. It’s really hard. He’s already a mature kid and humble, hopefully we can put a good plan together and he execute it.”
ARE YOU GUYS OPERATING IN A BUBBLE LIKE ATMOSPHERE THIS YEAR?
“We are. Class was in the bubble yesterday and today. I appreciate our administration and our academic team because it’s not easy. Just a lot of unknown and uncertainty with a lot of students coming back on campus. We felt like it was the right move. We will at least do that for, I would assume, the first month or so and kind of evaluate where things are.”
IS THERE ANY CONCERN WITH TENDINITIS IN MALIK’S ARM?
“Probably every quarterback I’ve ever had at the start of camp has had some soreness. Just wanted to make sure it didn’t get any worse. There was never a time he couldn’t have gone and played. Just trying to make sure he’s totally healthy.”
SOME PEOPLE WOULD SAY THE ODDITY OF LAST YEAR IS WHY YOU, COASTAL, LOUISIANA WERE GOOD LAST YEAR. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO THAT AND DO YOU BELIEVE YOU BELONG IN THAT GROUP?
“Just look at the product that was on the field. Everybody had the same opportunities. Everybody had the same issues. Our team found a way to win a bunch of games. So did Lafayette, so did Coastal. They were very good football teams. So was BYU. I don’t know. I don’t get caught up in what people say or don’t say. I know we were 10-1 and won a bowl game against a top 15 opponent. Whether they deserved to be in the top 15 or not, is not for me to say. I thought they were dang good. I think we were pretty good. 15 years from now they are going to see 10-1 and a Cure Bowl win.”
IS THAT A HARD ACT TO FOLLOW?
“I’ve been to Sugar Bowls. The next year it’s hard to follow. I’ve been to the Peach Bowl and two New Year’s Six. Those were hard to follow. Undefeated in the Sun Belt. That was hard to follow. We had six state championship runs in high school and every year was hard to follow. Any time you have success, because the way the world works, they are going to beat the heck out of you if, in their eyes, you don’t measure up the following year to what you already gave them. People get spoiled with success. That’s why I’m big and why I’ve talked to our team and staff, we’re not going to chase success. We chase a standard. We sure hope like heck that standard leads to success, but I don’t know another way. If we’re just chasing success all the time, we are going to be bitterly disappointed. We better chase that standard of today and measure up to that today, and then tomorrow, and then the next few days leading up to week one. See where that puts us in terms of worldly success in people’s eyes. I’ve gotten too old to worry about what people may say we deserve or don’t deserve. I’m really a nice guy. I really am, but I have an edge about me. I’m from the country. I’m kinda like one of those NASCAR guys. Nobody really cares about you unless you are winning. Then, they talk about you if you are winning, good or bad. Let’s just keep winning and we will let them say whatever they want.”
“I don’t think Earnhardt cared too much about what people said about him when he wrecked folks. He probably didn’t care about that either sometimes, he just wanted to win.”
