Quarterbacks, not surprisingly, remained a primary topic Saturday as Liberty held its annual Spring Game and moved towards the conclusion of the spring practice. The Flames concluded the 15 spring practices on Monday morning following its final scrimmage of the spring on Saturday.
Though Liberty still hasn’t named a starter in its battle that has pitted redshirt-junior Jonathan Bennett, incoming transfer and redshirt-senior Charlie Brewer, and rising redshirt-freshmen Kaidon Salter and Nate Hampton, head coach Hugh Freeze proclaimed his belief in all of the aforementioned signal-callers.
“That thing’s going to go into game week,” Freeze said of the competition. “I just think it will go into game week. I think all four have had good days and all four have had bad days. I do think I’m cautiously optimistic. I think we will have several ready that can perform.”
Freeze, who early in spring mentioned he would like to narrow the competition to as few as two by the end of the spring, says he is not ready to eliminate anyone from the battle just yet. He will meet with quarterbacks coach Kent Austin this week to discuss it in more detail, but he doesn’t think those discussions will shed any light.
“We will watch all of film cut ups Tuesday and Wednesday and have the total grades and all of that,” he said. “I think coming into fall camp, we probably still unclear. I kinda have in my mind three, but not sure a fourth one couldn’t do it too.”
Whoever ends up as the starter at quarterback will be finding themselves looking to fill some big shoes. Malik Willis started at quarterback for the Flames the past two seasons after transferring from Auburn. He is now prepared to become the first Liberty quarterback ever selected in the NFL Draft later this month and is being projected as a likely first round pick.
“We just lost, what appears to be, a first round draft pick,” said Freeze. “I don’t care where you’re at, you lose a first round draft pick at quarterback, there’s very few people in the country that just roll out another one, I would say there are five or less that do that on a regular basis. Obviously, you’re not ever as far along (as you want to be), but there’s no doubt there’s been growth there (this spring). Very few of those have had to take reps in our system because of Malik. JB probably has the best grasp of it all. I think you can win games with JB. There’s other things that Kaidon can do and Nate can do, and Charlie, the guy’s thrown for over 10,000 yards. I like our guys. How we’re going to determine which one or two it is, it’s going to be hard.”
Entering the summer with the potential of four different quarterbacks that could be the starter on day one in the fall, is not ideal, but Freeze says it won’t affect their overall offensive schemes that much. Each quarterback has their own unique abilities, and Freeze has worked with a similar quarterback before whether at Liberty or at his previous stops throughout his career.
“I know if it’s a Buckshot what I’m calling and what I’m not,” he explained, referring to the gunslinger Buckshot Calvert who was Liberty’s starting quarterback during 2019 in Freeze’s first year with the Flames. “I know if it’s a Malik, I know pretty much what his strengths are. If it’s a JB, that’s more of the Buckshot world. If it’s Kaidon, that’s more of the Malik world, probably. If it’s Nate, he can do a little of both. If it’s Charlie, it’s probably more of my Bo Wallace type plans. But it’s not like they have to learn a new offense or new verbiage, it’s just the calls would be specialized more so to those talents.”
One thing is for certain, Freeze has never finished spring practice with so many quarterbacks firmly in the mix.
“No, never, it’s never been quite like this,” he said. “I can’t remember any years. It’s always been one or two guys. Kent and I are going to have to sit down and have a discussion next week. I really don’t know that we’re going to clear a lot up with those discussions. I have a gut feeling what I think it will be, but I’m not near ready to say that.”
