Liberty head coach Jamey Chadwell met with the media on Tuesday as he discusses the Flames’ season opening win against Campbell as well as look ahead to this week’s contest at New Mexico State. Check out the full video and transcript from his press conference below.
“You look at the video, there’s some good things that we did, there’s some things that maybe we didn’t do the things necessary to help us maybe play better overall. Obviously, we can improve in a lot of areas there, from whether it’s turnovers, tackling, some penalties. You go back and look at some of the penalties, there in the last the last quarter, we got three personal fouls, three. So, we gave up 45 yards on three plays. We had some guys come in and get the opportunity to play for the first time, and they totally didn’t do what we coached them to do. I was disappointed in all that.”
“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. 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 as we open the conference and looking forward to that. I know our guys are excited. We had a good practice yesterday. I know they’re excited about the opportunity to get into conference play.”
Different week, late start, practices are a little different, how challenging is that?
“Well, it is a late start, but that’s not going to be an excuse. We gotta go out and figure it out, find a way to do it. So, we’ll be similar to what we always have. We’ll practice like what we did last week. 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 1030 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.”
What are your thoughts on the offensive line play and how they did in Week 1?
“Well, I mean, if you look at statistically, over 500 yards. We were pretty balanced. If you look at that, you’re thinking, hey, they didn’t do as bad as maybe I thought or vice versa. I think more than anything, what you’re looking for is, one, are they doing what we’re coached to do? And then secondly, are they emptying their tank? And what I mean by that is, I think when you have some
injuries, those guys that had to maybe play a lot of snaps, maybe they didn’t let it all loose early on, trying to maybe hold themselves back a little bit. So there’s a little disappointment there. I think we’ve got to let ourselves go. And what I mean by that is not saving it for later on in the game. But there were some good things they did.”
“I think the key for us to make improvement there is those guys have got to continue to play together. We made some mistakes that need to be corrected if we’re going to be able to move the ball consistently as we get into league play and against better opponents, at the end of the day. Some things that are very fixable. It wasn’t like it was a physical thing. It’s just more of some technique and doing the right things, going with the right people. We did have some mental errors there that we can definitely improve. Sometimes that happens, you practice, you practice, then you get in front of 21,000 and it’s new. So those guys that have not played for us, or maybe not played in an environment like that, it’s a little different. But I thought there was some good things. I mean, you had an Aaron Fenimore, first time playing, center, snapping the ball. It’s hard. We moved Jordan White to guard. Jordan Hall had to come in and play most of the game at left tackle. We had to move Jack over to right (tackle) after about two series. Harry had to play some tackle and guard. We were doing a lot of different movement there, and this is where we’re at right now. But, as we went, as you look at the game, they got better. But there’s definitely marketed improvement we need to make.”
Is there any update on Xavior Gray’s status?
“No, not currently. We did get some positive news from it, so it wasn’t what they maybe assumed right away. So, 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, long term. JP (Flores) is a long-term thing. 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.
How do you think the run defense performed?
“If you look defensively, everybody looking here, there. I mean, we gave up 300 yards. Which 300 yards in today’s world, is really good in college football. We misfit something. They got a big run. There was a couple opportunities there where we missed some tackles and gave up some big plays. 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. And that’s a period. Liberty, just period, we can’t beat ourselves. But I was pleased with a lot of the things there.”
“I just don’t think we came out with a great attitude and energy to go out and want to dominate. 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, really, the whole time there in the second half, I thought we did some way better stuff. We just gotta come out ready to go. Not like, oh, we’ll just feel it out. 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. I think that showed there. We’ve got to just clean up some of those things. The missed tackles are the main thing. You can get the fits right, we’ve got to tackle better. If you go back and study that video, a lot of those plays…On the touchdown pass, the one kid (broke) a bunch of tackles. We could have got him down, made it fourth down, and then he missed two, three tackles. Obviously, the misfit on the long run, but we helld them to a field goal. Then the other is a hitch and go, and he makes a great play on it, and then missed about three or four more tackles there that could have been. So, if we clean those up, then, you probably feel a lot better about the performance.”
Is it easier to ‘let it loose’ early on against a conference opponent like New Mexico State?
“I would hope that’s just who we are. I think that’s more the disappointing thing. This is our standard we choose to play with, and it shouldn’t be based off who you’re playing. So, I hope that’s not the case, maybe it was. If it was, maybe I didn’t do a great job of getting us ready to go, from that standpoint. So that’s on me, but my expectations in all of our phases is that won’t happen anymore.”
Does NMSU look similar to last year with Tony Sanchez taking over?
“There’s going to be a lot of similarities. Obviously, I think they probably held back some things in their first game a little bit too, but they had some balance. Same offensive coordinator, brought the defensive coordinator from Sam Houston, he obviously did a great job verse us last year. So, we expect to see some of the similar stuff there. So, there’s some similarities, but he’s going to put his two cents in the way he’s running it. They’re going to play extremely hard, they are a disciplined team, I think they’re finding their way as well. They lost a lot of players, and so that first game is always challenging when you’re trying to organize a big new group like that. He’s doing the same thing. They were obviously able to win as well. It’s not easy. I think your first game is not necessarily a reflection of what your overall team looks like, because you’re trying to gel so many people at the time. We obviously expect a great crowd out there, a raucous crowd. We expect them to play well. We have to play well if we’re going to go out and do well.”
Is that the biggest challenge when you’re looking at a new head coach is trying to figure out how they’re going to use the personnel?
“I think it was week one, because you’re trying to figure out a new coach, all the new coaches, and then you don’t know tons about the player. Doesn’t mean he’s the same here. At least we got a game to see. You can watch the guys and see them, and you can watch the guys that came from other places. They brought transfers from here and there, so you can watch some of the video they have. But I do think that’s a challenge early on. Ok, scheme wise, they do this, but who’s the players doing it? No matter what your scheme is, it’s the players you got up there, they’re the ones that make it go. I do think there’s a little challenge with that, but now that at least you got one (game), you have a chance to see the majority of who’s playing, and then you can put your study into what we want to do and how you want to try to attack. I expect them to play way better than they did. I expect us to play way better than we did. So, it should be a heck of a game.”
