Liberty improved to 5-1 on the season following their win on Saturday at UMass, 42-24. This week, the Flames return home to take on Gardner-Webb for a 3:30 p.m. kick in a game that will be streamed on ESPN+. On Monday, Liberty head coach Hugh Freeze held his weekly press conference, here’s everything he had to say, including audio of his press conference:
“I thought UMass, the highlights, special teams we had three explosive returns, punt team made a game changing type play again downing the ball inside the 1. Aidan continues to a be really, really solid performer for us. They gave the offense the starting field position in the first half the -45 yard line which is good. I thought Treadwell played really well on special teams. Negatives, we had a loose ball on the ground, which we can’t afford to do. I just thought we were kind of sloppy in the second half there.”
“Defensively, held them to 233 yards of offense which is really good. 8 three and outs, 11 TFLs, 6 sacks. The biggest highlight, probably, from the previous week to this one we were 95% on third down which is incredible. We got one takeaway, really should have had two, in my opinion. Negatives, we gave up three explosive plays that really resulted in their 10 points. The other 14, one was on the offense and one we kind of had all our reserves in. Good to see them get in the game. Didn’t think our effort was great in the second half or to the standard of what our defense has been playing. We had one play, in particular, that really kind of signifies that to me. Dre Butler has an outstanding track on retracing and running to the ball, knocks it loose. We had four other guys, which if they were playing with the same intensity that they do most of the time, we probably recover that.”
“Offensively, positives, we averaged 15 yards a catch, had 15 explosive plays, were 5 of 6 in the red zone for touchdowns. Should have been 6 for 6. 2 minute drill was very efficient. I thought our tempo was very good when went fast. Negatives, we continue to haunt ourselves with slow starts in both halves which is frustrating as heck, and we had a fumble that resulted in a touchdown. We were 0 for 2 on 4th downs. We just continue to do things that put us behind the chains or don’t give us in a position where we are in 2nd down and we can get into our normal tempo offense. We’ve got to continue to work and get better. We didn’t play particularly well at two spots in the offensive line. At quarterback, we were a little slow starting, also.”
“Again our kids found a way to win, on the road to get us one step closer to bowl eligibility. Excited to be back home to play here at home for two straight weeks. That’s going to be really, really nice. Looking forward to that.”
“Man, I told our team this morning, I’m going to fight like heck this week, and they’re going to see a very determined staff that is determined to not see us when everybody will say, ‘Hey, it’s your FCS opponent, you should probably win this.’ I honestly believe that this team we are getting ready to play is as good, if not better, in their totality than last week’s opponent. If you watch their game against Coastal and against Marshall, it’s concerning. There are two really good defensive linemen in 1 and 47. We wanted 47. 1 is really, really good, big, strong, active in the secondary. Really well coached. Very different than last week’s, but man these guys know what they’re doing, all 11 are on the same page. They are in the right spots. Their front is one of the strengths of their team on the defensive side.”
“I’m impressed, I don’t know Coach Lamb personally, but impressed with the way his kids play. Really impressed with his offensive scheme. Look, he does a lot of things. You are looking at pole cats, trick plays. Watched his games against the Group of Five opponents like Marshall and Coastal and there’s a lot of stuff going on with him trying to give his kids a chance to win a football game that would have significance for them. So, we’re going to have to do a lot of planning for having to adjust and align to a lot of stuff that we see on there. Impressed with the job that they do both offensively and defensively. I haven’t watched special teams, but so far I am impressed with what I see on film. Coming off a big win too, so they will have some confidence.”
HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS YOUR TEAM HALFWAY THROUGH THE SEASON?
“I’m our worst critic to our coaching staff and to our players. Obviously, I am thoroughly pleased with the grit that our team has shown. The ability to stare injuries, adversity a little bit, on the road, some good teams and to find a way to have a chance to win everyone of them that we’ve been in. I think we deserve an A++ for that. The grit, the leadership, the belief, the adjustments, all of that I think we have been pretty good at that.”
“The consistency in doing things that should be our base that give us a chance to add more efficiency, we’re not there yet. Is that because of some constant turnover at different spots, I don’t know, in particular the quarterback one. Not real sure, but it’s frustrating to watch with the team this morning. I watch a negative reel with our offense every Monday morning. The entire offense, the entire staff of things, and I have to put my negatives on there too. I had two bad calls too. A guy that coaches as long as I have, you don’t want to look at that film and see man, we had two calls that were schematically had zero chance at working. Let me say, I had one for sure that had zero chance. The other is actually a good call if I had repped it with the kids, the look that we saw, but we had not. It’s hard to say that you can expect great results when you hadn’t shown them a look that was a weird look. Schematically it can work, but you would have to practice it. Had two calls like that, so I have to own that in front of them. Then, they have to own how did we not get this one right, we repped it 13 times. Those are the ones, again A++ for grit, belief, adjustments, culture, fun to be around, all of that, I just don’t feel like we have been, corporately as a team, defense has been pretty solid other than the third down plan at Old Dominion and our pass defense at Akron, which, again, they had a really good plan. It was different than what we had saw. Other than that, they have been pretty dang good.”
“But offensively, particularly, we have been inconsistent at some of the things that we really should be getting right. So, that’s my synopsis, but we’re 5-1. That trumps everything. We celebrate being in that position and relish another opportunity to try to get the 6th win this Saturday, but it will not be given to us. We will have to earn it.”
WHAT CAN YOU CONTRIBUTE THE SLOW STARTS TO OFFENSIVELY?
“Did you just listen to my 10 minutes? I have no clue. If I did, I would have had it fixed by now. We will continue to work at it.”
YOU SCORED TOUCHDOWNS ON YOUR FIRST DRIVES TWICE…
“We’ve scored touchdowns on every drive where we won first down. Once we finally won first down and could get into our tempo stuff. Our tempo stuff we averaged 9 yards a play on, but you’ve got to win first down. We should have won more than we didn’t the other day, but it was really us. I just got to keep working.”
IS CHARLIE BREWER ANY CLOSER THIS WEEK?
“Man, we’ve got a whole list if y’all want to talk about all of it so y’all don’t have to report stuff that may or may not be. Charlie is working. Charlie is chomping at the bits to play. I believe his doctor’s appointment is Wednesday. I talked with the doctors all weekend, as soon as he can fully grip a football and we feel like he can be trusted to take care of the ball, they are going to release him to play. They think structurally the thing is…but his hand has been in a cast for several weeks so it’s not as functional as normal. That’s his work every day, now it’s just hand strengthening. He threw some yesterday and he’s going to throw some today and see how he feels, but you can rest assured that as soon as he’s going to be given the green light he’s going to want to push the envelope to play. Whether that is this Saturday or next Saturday, I don’t really know, but I anticipate it being one of those two just from talking to him and the docs. I believe that.”
“CJ Daniels, we have made a decision to try and redshirt him. We think that would be better for the future of our program and him, to get him full healthy. We are six games in, he has played in two, so he can still play in two more. We will kind of judge that based on the health of that room as we continue to go.”
“We’ve also done that with Deon Biggins and Jaylon Jimmerson, trying to redshirt those guys, also. Chase Mitchell, trying to redshirt him and Harrison (Hayes) both, if we can. Just trying to build for the future. We believe that is the best for the young man and for our team. Not sure who else, but just so you know when they are not on there, it has nothing to do with more injury. CJ, we had a talk with he and his family. He’s not 100% and really would just like for him, because I think he’s a phenomenal player and great teammate, will be on our culture counsel. I want him around here some more years where he can take that brace off and go full speed by next year. So, that’s the plan there.”
THOUGHTS ON HOW KHRISTIAN ZACHARY, STEPHEN SINGS PERFORMED?
“Solid, solid. All the grades on the D-Line were good. I thought they played good. I thought CJ Bazile did some good things, we are going to need him the next few weeks as TreShaun recovers. I thought they were pretty solid. Everybody was graded 80% or above in the D-Line so that was good to see.”
WOULD YOU HAVE LIKED TO HAVE REDSHIRTED BAZILE?
“Well, it’s not too late yet. I believe that was game one for him. So, that one is to be determined based on health. I like to redshirt as many as we can, but sometimes the redshirts are better in year two, three, or four if you have injuries or something. Right now, the ones I mentioned are the ones we are attempting to. CJ, Rashaud Pernell, some of those, we will have to see how we go health wise. Rashaud, he’s going to get reps this week in practice, but we will see how the season goes. We are not afraid to play any of them in at least four games, for sure.”
YOU FELT THE TEAM TOOK THEIR FOOT OFF THE GAS LAST YEAR AFTER GETTING BOWL ELIGIBLE, DO YOU APPROACH THAT ANY DIFFERENTLY NOW KNOCKING ON THE DOOR OF BOWL ELIGIBILITY?
“Well, I hope we are one year more matured. I just don’t know how else to approach the season. Look, I’m a realist, you are not in the national championship discussion, probably only on a given year right now in the current format four teams, five teams, six teams at the most are really involved in that. The rest of us are fighting to get bowl eligible and give our kids, our administration, our school, our fans, that opportunity which means something around here. I don’t know about other places, but for us it means something. So, I don’t know, we’re not in a conference, we’re not playing for the national championship. So, that has to be the goal, that has to be how do we get to that. Should we gain that in the next couple of weeks, that’s great. Obviously, I’m confident that I have a way to approach the others and maybe we are a little more mature, but that schedule gets pretty dang difficult. So, it may not be an issue that well, they didn’t handle it right they were bowl eligible. I don’t know that I’m going to buy into that when you are playing teams like BYU, Virginia Tech and a better UConn and Arkansas in that second half, on the road in some of those where conditions could be a little different than what our kids are used to. I won’t buy into all of that. I am confident, I like the way we are approaching it. Next year it will be a little different, yeah we want to be bowl eligible but we want to win the conference too.”
GWU HAD 9 DIFFERENT GUYS THAT HAVE RUSHED FOR A TOUCHDOWN, YOU MENTIONED TRICK PLAYS, DOES THAT FACTOR INTO THAT?
“I haven’t watched enough to be able to tell you how all nine scored their touchdowns. Yesterday is spent with me watching, getting a full grasp of who they are defensively. Then, I get started on Monday morning just getting all the others. So, I’m not quite ready to say how they all scored their touchdowns, but I am impressed. He fights to give his kids a chance to win games.”
HOW’S TJ GREEN’S KNEE DOING AFTER GETTING REPS?
“He was good this morning. I thought his knee functioned ok. I just thought he was really gassed. He went three straight carries and needed a break. Coach Dom and them have to get him caught up conditioning a little bit.”
HOW MUCH DOES THAT HELP THE DEPTH AT RB GETTING HIM BACK?
“Depth is incredibly valuable when you are going through a 12-game season, particularly with the second half, physical games we’re going to have. Also, if we’re able to stay healthy there, we originally, at the beginning of the year, had a plan for Shedro to play some slot too to give Demario a bit of a break there. It really would help if we got TJ back health, that would help us with redshirting CJ where we can move Jaivian around and we can have Shedro doing some of that too. It would be great for us to get him fully healthy and ready to go.”
PHILOSOPHICALLY, OFFENSE AND DEFENSE, AS A PROGRAM, WHO IS LIBERTY?
“I would say for all my years of coaching, offensively, I would say people would think of us as a balanced, tempo offense where we try to run and throw pretty equally. Our answers are based in the RPO game, typically. Defensively, I think we are an aggressive, movement type defense that tries to create negative plays.”
HOW WELL HAVE YOU SUCCEEDED IN DOING THOSE THINGS SO FAR THIS YEAR?
“Defensively, pretty good. Offensively at times really good and at other times very inconsistent.”
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS SPECIAL ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR TEAM?
“I think it’s hard, unless you have seen all the games, to really understand this team truly has grit and toughness and belief and really believe in playing the 60 minutes and seeing what the scoreboard says. I think that’s very hard for anyone to judge unless you are at all the games.”
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR 4 QUARTERBACKS?
“Well, our quarterbacks are responsible for the protection calls no matter who is in there. We’ve got to be able to coach them on how to get yourself protected. So, they are all responsible for that.”
“They are all different. Charlie, I didn’t get to see but what two series? So, I don’t have the full…I like him, obviously, I named him our starter, but I hadn’t had any games with him really where we get tested together and see how we respond. Kaidon is obviously, I think, going to be a really, really good player, really good quarterback. Has shown flashes of really good stuff and has shown flashes where he didn’t quite protect the ball like he should, but he’s young.”
“JB is the more veteran, been around us a long time. Should understand how things should go pre-snap and post-snap. Has been a little more inconsistent than I would have imagined, but seems to settle in too some. He settled in kind of during the second quarter the other day and I thought was pretty solid other than the start of the third quarter for the remainder of the game.”
“Nate throws a really good deep ball, struggles mightily on the intermediate ones it seems. I’ve said it all along that we have four guys that I thought could come in and we could compete with. It has proven to be true. I don’t like the fact that we’ve had to do that. I think it’s really been an adjustment on our entire team offensively to try to do it, but yet we find ways to score the 35, 38, 42 points or so that allows us to win games, or the 20 that it took to beat UAB or whatever it was. So, thankful for all four of them.”
WHO HAS BEEN THE MVP OF THE OFFENSE AND DEFENSE SO FAR AND WHY?
“Oh boy, I don’t know. You would probably have to point toward Demario and Dae Dae on offense. I wouldn’t call anybody MVPs yet, but I would say that they have been pretty consistent in creating explosive plays for us. Defensively, Mike Smith has been pretty solid, Ahmad Walker, Scruggs, the whole D-Line, Kendy Charles probably has stood out maybe a little more than the others, but I’m pleased with all of them.”
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE OUT OF JB THIS WEEK AS HE PREPARES?
“I’ve seen it most practices, he usually prepares pretty well. He’s still inconsistent in some of his throws in practice, but he typically has the decision right. Like if you are supposed to throw a swing on a loaded box, he typically gets that right 100% of the time in practice. Yet, the start of the third quarter, the very first play, we have exactly what we want, Demario is probably going to run for 15 yards before he ever encounters an unblocked tackler and we’re off and running with our tempo, and he doesn’t throw it. Those are mysteries to me. Just continue to rep the base package of how we are going to get started so that we can get in, whether it’s our landmarks or whether it’s our shot plays or whether it’s our tempo that we feel the freedom to call those. It’s hard to call those when you are in 2nd and 10 and you are thinking, man I’ve got to get this in third and manageable. Your whole call sheet, a bunch of it is gone and you are just back to your first and 10 calls. That’s not always going to be a recipe for great success.”
