FLAMES WANT TO SEE IMPROVEMENT IN WEEK 2

It wasn’t a perfect season opener by any means in Liberty’s 41-24 win over Campbell There were some busted plays on defense, way too many penalties, and some miscues on special teams. Still, overall, the team got the win and did so relatively comfortably.

Now, moving into week two, a road game against a team it played in the 2023 CUSA Championship Game, improvement is needed for the Flames to notch another victory in the win column.

“Overall, especially if you look at what happened throughout college football, first game is always a challenging deal, especially if you don’t know a lot about your opponent,” said Liberty head coach Jamey Chadwell. “I thought our opponent did a really nice job of coming in, had some good players, but we figured it out and did some really good things. We had some things that we must improve on, but we’ll get that fixed this week.”

FLAMES PREPARING FOR LATE KICKOFF TIME

It’s not every day when a team kicks off after 10:30 p.m., but, in theory, that’s what Liberty will be doing Saturday night in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It will be 8:30 local time, but, not flying out until later in the day Friday, the Flames’ body clocks will certainly still be on eastern time.

Liberty typically practices in the morning and has done that throughout the week with the exception of a Thursday evening practice.

“Well, it is a late start, but that’s not going to be an excuse,” said Chadwell. “Most of our games now are six, at least early on. We’re a morning practice team, so we practice last Thursday, later in the day, practiced at night. We’ll do the same thing this week, just to get us used to, as close to, that kick off time frame as possible. We obviously can’t practice at 10:15 at night when we get kicked off out there at 10:30 or whatever time it’s going to be. But we’ll get as close as we can. That’ll be a little bit of adjustment to Thursday. But we did that last week as well. So that’ll be something our team’s used to. Just get out and be ready to go.”

The Flames will fly out of Lynchburg Friday night, have all day Saturday to try and get their bodies adjusted to the time change. Unlike the usual flight back to Lynchburg immediately following the game, Liberty staying overnight Saturday before leaving to head back to Virginia Sunday.

ASSESSING THE DEFENSE’S PERFORMANCE IN WEEK 1

Liberty gave up 24 points and 310 yards of offense to Campbell. That’s not the recipe the Flames would have drawn up entering the game against an FCS opponent. If we look deeper into it though, it wasn’t all bad for the Liberty defense.

In today’s world of college football, allowing 300 yards isn’t terrible. The Flames’ defense had a few busted plays that allowed the Camels to rack up the yards and led to points.

“There was a couple opportunities there where we missed some tackles and gave up some big plays,” said Chadwell. “Besides that, we played 54 plays on defense, and 48 of them were pretty good. It was just the six where we missed some tackles or didn’t execute the way we wanted, and it gave up some big plays. Those are things that we have to avoid. We got to be a defense that doesn’t beat ourselves.”

Chadwell also wants his defense to start the game with a bit of an edge and attitude to them.

“I don’t think we came out with a great attitude and energy to go out and want to dominate,” he said. “I think we (felt) our way around a little bit instead of being ready to go right away, After the lightning delay, we played better consistently. We gotta come out with the mentality we want to be a dominating defense and this is what we do in the game. That’s our message to our defense. I believe we got it across. We can be a good defense. We’ve got to just clean up some of those things. The missed tackles are the main thing.”

INJURY REPORT

Here’s an update on Liberty’s current injury situation:

  • CB Amarian Williams did not play in the season opener against Campbell. He is currently considered week to week and could play Saturday at New Mexico State.
  • LT Xavior Gray exited the Campbell game with an undisclosed injury. There is a chance he could return as soon as this week at New Mexico State.
  • WR Juju Gray was banged up in the season opener against Campbell and was limited during the game. His status for this week at NMSU is uncertain.
  • LG JP Flores is expected to miss several weeks with a leg injury.
  • WR Victor Jones continues to be out.

Chadwell on Xavior Gray – “We did get some positive news from it, so it wasn’t what they maybe assumed right away. I do think we’ll get him back. Don’t know if it’ll be this week or not, but I don’t believe it’s going to be something that’s long term. I’m hoping we can get him back this week, don’t know yet, still waiting to hear from some doctors. We’re planning that he won’t be here this week, but hopefully by next week, could be ready to go.