The Liberty Flames fell to 3-1 on this weekend, falling to Syracuse, 24-21, on Friday night from the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York. The Flames play UAB this week with kickoff from Birmingham, Alabama scheduled for 7 p.m. EST on CBS Sports Network. 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 after he was wished a happy birthday.
“Well, you never like losing a game that you felt like you had a chance to win” he said. “Look at the film and see so many different individual plays or calls that could make a difference in it. The older I get, unfortunately, you don’t enjoy the wins as much as you should and the losses sting probably worse than they should. Every single Saturday there are 60 some odd teams that have to experience either side of that. We are experiencing the disappointing side of athletics and sports this week, but that’s when you get tested. Today, is going good. Our kids responded well in our practice this morning. I’ve often worried this year that we were a bit not preparing quite as well as we have in past years. That catches up with you, and Syracuse certainly has a good football team and deserves their success. At the same time, it was a game we could have won. Hopefully we will prepare better this week, for sure.”
“It’s been an awesome birthday thus far outside of still dealing with us losing a game that we could have won, so thank you for saying that.”
I WANTED TO GET YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT TIGHT RED ZONE SITUATION WITH THE TIE GAME, DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR DECISION TO GO FOR IT WAS THE CORRECT CALL?
“Yeah, so I will take you through it just like I took the kids through it. Either you believe in the analytics or you don’t. You either go with them or you don’t. Certainly, I have the right to say we don’t. It was 100% go for it 4 downs anywhere inside the 5 as long as it was above 6 minutes. That’s what it was. That part of it worked out just like analytics says. Even if you don’t make it, they have to go 98 yards. We stopped them, forced them to punt, and we got it back with the last possession. That’s what analytics are for. Obviously, they don’t control whether we fumble or not, and unfortunately we fumbled. Analytics played out just like it said it would.”
“Now, going back to the red zone deal. The first down call should have been a touchdown. Demario ran the wrong route. Instead of the fade-pylon he ran the fade-out and that’s why he was out of bounds. Me and Coach Harris have to coach him better on that route. We obviously haven’t repped it enough for him to understand. Felt like we should have scored there. The second down run, they did a good job there. The third down run, we had one guy just totally blew an assignment – thought it was a stretch to the left, it was stretch to the right. We’ve got everybody blocked and Malik running, there’s a guy that’s unblocked. Again, I’ve got to coach them better, how that got confused I don’t know. Then, the 4th down call, I think, is still a really solid call. We just didn’t coach it well enough, it seemed, the execution of it just wasn’t there. We didn’t execute it. If we execute the play, you’ve got TJ Green one on one with a safety to that pylon. I’ve obviously got to coach better so that we have all 11 on the same page and our offensive coaches also.”
“On the analytics part, I think it worked out just like it should have, even though we didn’t score. We got the ball back and should have had the last possession to hopefully win the game.”
JUST TO CLARIFY THE 4TH DOWN PLAY WAS AN OPTION FOR GREEN?
“The 4th down play was a speed option to the boundary, and Malik had the option of reading the end and either running it or pitching it. We just didn’t execute it well. I don’t know if he would have pitched it or not, but we’ve got to attack the end and make him make a decision. There’s an option to cut it up earlier that he might would have had, but that’s really not something we have coached a whole lot. Obviously, I’ve got to coach it better.”
WHAT ABOUT YOUR USE OF WHEN TO CALL YOUR FINAL TWO TIMEOUTS?
“The analytics said that they probably would have recommended that I went ahead and used that one and according to their calculation we would have had like 6 seconds left. They still would have ran it all the way down even if I used mine. They were in total control of the clock with their three timeouts. Once they got that first down we were up against it and you either try to use it. If I used it early, they still would have milked the 30 seconds off and used their timeouts. Hindsight on that, next time I will call both and hope we have 6 seconds, but at that point you’re debating if there’s going to be 6 or so seconds, which they have the analytics in the box, if it’s going to be something like that you decide do we save the timeout and try to draw up a great block and make sure our kids understand what we want out of the block and that’s what I decided to do. Next time, I will probably use them immediately and see if we can have a few seconds left to do something.”
CAN YOU DETAIL WHERE THE NOISE IN THE DOME PLAYED A FACTOR?
“We used loud crowd noise for prep for this one, but it wasn’t to the magnitude that the Dome was. I don’t know. It wasn’t a huge crowd, I don’t know. It was definitely different. It caused us getting a few protections wrong in Malik’s communication. It put us late in the clock a few times because of that. Kind of took us out of a package that I really liked against them, but it has so many moving parts to it that just felt like after we got it started was a little uncomfortable putting us that late in the play clock. We had the crowd noise as loud as we could in our Indoor, we might have to get Ian to buy some more speakers and make it louder. I don’t know.”
AS A SYRACUSE ALUM, I WISH I WOULD HAVE WARNED YOU ABOUT THE NOISE YOU ENCOUNTERED IN THE DOME.
“I actually talked to a couple coaches that had played there. Bobby Bowden once told me that that was his least favorite place to play because of it. We had an idea. We did our crowd noise as loud as we could, but it certainly circulates in there.”
THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME YOU HAVEN’T SCORED INSIDE THE TIGHT RED ZONE, WHAT HAS LED TO THAT SUCCESS?
“We plan pretty hard on those. We work hard and our players typically execute fairly well there. We have been pretty successful, and that’s why, I guess, it’s so disappointing that we didn’t get it in there and give ourselves a chance to win the game. It’s hard against good football teams, Power Five or not, and Syracuse’s defense, again, look at their rankings. They are one of the top in the country, physical and long. That made it more challenging, but I still think we had a good plan. I’ve just got to get our kids to execute in those critical moments. That’s the job of the coach, and that’s where responsibility lies.”
THE FUMBLE THAT SET UP THE GAME WINNING SCORE, WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN ON FILM SINCE REVIEWING THAT?
“We had the right protection called. Actually, in an attempt to have great effort, and it was, one of our linemen in the slide really shoved a defensive lineman that was in his gap on that slide protection into another gap which made it two people in another gap. One of those came free. That’s what caused Malik to step out of the pocket to the left. Malik is a guy that makes so many plays. The hardest thing to do for a guy that is as talented as he is to help him understand when it’s time, play’s over. It’s just first down. We still have plenty of time and, at that point, they really hadn’t stopped us the last few times. It’s very difficult for him to understand that and I get, but man we’ve got to try to help him understand the play is over, just eat it, and let’s move on to 2nd down.”
WILL YOU EVALUATE THE KICKING SITUATION THIS WEEK?
“It’s definitely going to be evaluated. One, I thought Alex kicked the ball off extremely well. I thought our freshman punter Max was really good. It’s good to see him step up in the absence of Aiden. He did a good job holding also. Obviously, Alex has made some big kicks for us. But, at this point, yes we are going to look at all options. Points on that first drive would have been huge. It does play a role in your mind as the game goes on as you are making decisions. It certainly plays into it.”
WHAT IS ALVES’ STATUS MOVING FORWARD, AND IS THERE A CLEAR #2 GUY BEHIND BARBIR?
“He had surgery this week to put a plate in that clavicle so it’s going to be a little while for him. I would have to talk to Tanner. I know he’s got 2 or 3 guys in mind to have some competition this week. I don’t really want to comment on that yet, but definitely will be some competition.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE BLAZERS GOING INTO THIS WEEK?
“I think they are the best team we have played. I do. That’s no offense to anyone else. I think they are the most complete team that we have played offensively, defensively, special teams. I think they are the best we have seen. Obviously, they are opening their new stadium which I know that’s exciting. I’m real thrilled for them to get that. I know they’ve been through some ups and downs over the last several years with some uncertainty. The commitment to their kids and their coaching kids I know has got to be exciting. They will be up for it and certainly I think they are the best team we have seen thus far, complete team.”
“I could go into details. Bill is a heck of a ball coach. Those defensive teams he has with their coordinator Coach Reeves is there. They don’t get out of position and they make tackles. The Georgia score is kinda crazy. I can’t believe how that happened because Georgia couldn’t run it on them, they just hit them on a bunch of explosive plays. Georgia had trouble blocking them as has everyone else.”
“Conference USA champions two out of the last three years. Defense has finished top 10 in the country the last two years. Then you move to offense, whether it’s #9 or #17 at quarterback, their system is what they do. They believe in it. Their kids believe in it. They execute at a very high level and keep you really guessing and off-balance with different motions, personnel groupings. Same stuff, just looks different for the most part. Running backs are extremely talented. They are physical and solid. Tight ends are fast, big play threats. Wide receivers are the same. OLine’s the biggest and best we’ve seen.”
“I don’t know any other way to color it. It’s not the team I would choose to play after a difficult loss, but it’s what we have. It’s the next one on our schedule and what an opportunity for our kids. They are a really good football team, but so are we. We are a pretty good team too. Hopefully we will go and play like it.”
FIRST LOSS IN A LONG TIME, WHAT’S BEEN THE RESPONSE FROM THE PLAYERS?
“I was pleased this morning. We have our lesson of the week that I teach. It was a very timely message. Man, I’m just going to put it out there. If you can’t handle, as a coach, player, fan, having a difficult loss particularly with the good that we’ve experienced, then you’re not in the right frame of mind to be what I want this program to be. I shared the same thing with our kids and with the coaching staff. I shared it with the coaching staff last night and the kids today.”
“Are the options to feel sorry for yourself for self pity or to be thankful that people are disappointed when you have a loss. We should be too. This isn’t the last time we’re going to lose a game. I don’t know if you look at the schedules we’re playing, I tried to warn. This mentality of because we’ve won two bowl games in our first two years that all of a sudden in year three you’re ready to declare yourself as the rightful heir to some New Year’s Day bowl game or something is absolute just crazy.”
“We’re still developing our roster. Even after we develop it, and I love the fact that we’re Independent and we have a variety of games, but from year to year schedules are going to differ with difficulty. This one is very difficult this year. It’s not going to get much easier. You can say I forewarned you and I forewarned our kids, but we will probably in my tenure year lose another game or two or three. The thing you hate is what makes it so difficult, and I understand it, is this one was one that we had a chance to win and we didn’t get it done. That makes everybody, I get it, I live it, trust me. It keeps me up at night.”
WHAT ABOUT THE RESILIENCE OF YOUR TEAM FIGHTING BACK FROM BEING DOWN BY MORE THAN ONE TOUCHDOWN SINCE 2019?
“That’s a great stat. I didn’t know it had been that long since we had trailed by more than 7. Really proud. Told them this morning, told them after the game. We preach that we play 60 minutes, don’t blink, keep playing. We did. Our kids did. Our defense really played well in the second half. We had a chance to win it. That’s something that we can take from the game and be proud of. I told the kids, I can’t remember how I phrased it, I wrote it down, in a group of 100 or so on a sideline, I think it’s impossible to believe there’s some negativity or some loss of confidence when you get down by 14, but the core of our team just never quit. Just fought and gave us a chance to win in a difficult environment against a pretty good Power Five football team. Hopefully we can just execute better at the end of the next games that are like that, but we will draw on that for sure should we ever find ourselves in that case again.”
