It has been a blur for Liberty head coach Jamey Chadwell since he was hired to take over the program on Dec. 4. He had to focus on building his staff, securing the verbal commits Liberty already had, keeping players out of the portal, and also trying to add to the talent and depth of the roster for the 2023 season.
With the conclusion of the February signing period, Chadwell has successfully hired his coaching staff while also adding 28 new members to the team while also retaining several key pieces. It has been a busy first two months on the job for the new head coach, and now he and his staff can begin preparing for the 2023 season in earnest.
“Now, that we’re done with recruiting we’ve got an opportunity to spend some time with them,” said Coach Chadwell of the team. “I know we are going to have a team that will fight for each other. That’s what we want and that’s what we’re trying to identify right now, who are those guys.”
Chadwell and the staff will now begin focusing on developing relationships with themselves and the players through CPR classes. CPR stands for Coach and Player Relationships, something that Chadwell focuses on during the off-season to ensure he knows the team and they know them.
The players are now having the opportunity to meet not only with Chadwell one-on-one but also their position coaches and coordinators to develop these relationships. The team has also begun going through off-season workouts with new strength coach Chad Scott, something that is helping build some team chemistry.
Spring practice is also right around the corner with the Flames schedule to begin their first spring under Chadwell on Wednesday, March 8. The group of returners, in addition to the 17 mid-year additions, will begin to learn the new system and prepare for the 2023 season as Liberty enters Conference USA.
“They are hungry to prove what they can do, Chadwell said of the team. “It will be a great spring for us to see what we’ve got. We’ve got a lot of guys injured with previous injuries. There’s going to be some question marks as well with certain guys that we won’t know until the summer and fall.”
The Flames will conclude spring practice with the annual spring game on Saturday, April 15 at 1:30 p.m. Chadwell is still uncertain how the spring game will look this year, as he will wait and see how the team responds during the spring. In the past, Chadwell has had his spring game done in a variety of different ways. Sometimes it has been the first team offense going against the first team defense and the second team offense going against the second team defense without a lot of special teams work. He’s also held a spring game that was more like a practice and, at other times, he’s had his coaching staff to a draft and split the teams up.
“I think I’ll decide once we’re through spring and see if we need more situational stuff or do we need to lay the ball down and play a bit,” Chadwell said of the spring game. “I do know it will be great for our community to come out and see what the team is about, watch us run around and hopefully as we’re building our program they can see the foundation is growing. It will be a good time for them to see what foundation we are laying.”
