Liberty head coach Jamey Chadwell met with the media on Tuesday as he recapped the Flames win over UMass and looked ahead to Saturday’s game against UTEP. Check out the full video from his press conference below.
“Anytime you go on the road, especially in this league, I think it’s challenging. We’ve got a long flight out there, two hour time difference, so there is a lot of different challenges, I think, for us going out there and let alone them. They’ve got good players. I know their record doesn’t state that, but they’ve played Arizona, they’ve played UNLV, they’ve played Northwestern, that’s three bowl teams from an out of conference standpoint and then obviously our conference. They are a talented group, very big on the offensive line. They are going to try to run it down our throats, we’ve got something to prepare for there. Then, they are talented on defense.”
“They’ve played teams that run similar schemes, so they’re going to have an opportunity to know what they want to do against us to try to stop us and slow us down. We’ve got to be ready to go. For us and our challenge is can we continue, as our team, can we continue to stay hungry and not look ahead and stay in the moment? I think that’s always the challenge as you get later in the season when you do have another game guaranteed, and you are one of only two in your conference that has that. Is our motivation for that week, are we locked in on performing our best that week or looking ahead? If we get caught looking ahead, then we are going to get beat. Then everybody with all that undefeated talk, we’ve got to do a good job mindset wise, our players, of being ready to go.”
THE LONG ROAD TRIP, HOW MUCH DOES THAT CHANGE YOUR WEEKLY SCHEDULE?
“We will leave earlier just because of the time, it’s a two hour time difference, it’s a four hour flight. We will definitely leave earlier. We will practice Friday morning here and then leave out at 2 o’clock maybe, get out there at about 4 or 4:30 and then start our process. Because it is an early kick, we will do most of our video and meetings stuff on Friday. Later kicks you do it on Saturday. We need to get out there in enough time to get all that done.”
“It is a little challenging to change, not your schedule, but to get your players in a different routine. We’re used to doing an 8:30 chapel on Friday night. Well, we can’t do it at 8:30 out there because it’s 10:30. We’ve got to figure out how that works there. It won’t be a problem. We have got to figure it out.”
IT’S HARD TO COMPLAIN WHEN YOU SCORE THE FIRST 5 POSSESSIONS, BUT LOOKING AT THE 2ND HALF, WHAT LEVEL OF CONCERN IS THERE?
“Well, I don’t think we’ve executed with the same level of intensity. Some of that, if you go back a couple weeks, some of that was maybe playing a little bit more conservative because of the lead and not playing more aggressive, that is partly on me. Then you turn the ball over, that’s on us there. There are some things there that I think just from an intensity of focus in your execution that you are disappointed in. Then, also too, we are letting some other guys play as well in the fourth quarter. Some people don’t look at those things. Our job here is to develop and get those guys ready. We had a chance last week, went for it on fourth down and didn’t. There is a little mix of both of that. I think in the third quarter specifically, especially this last game, we get a turnover and then we go miss a field goal. We didn’t do a good job of calling plays there. We didn’t do a good job of executing the ones we did. I don’t want to say I’m concerned, but, if we’re up 35-10 or whatever it was, I’ll take it, obviously in the first half, but we have to be able to execute through four quarters. I think our offense knows that, and we’ve got to do a better job.”
THE TEAM HAS DONE A GREAT JOB IN NOVEMBER UNLIKE PREVIOUS YEARS, HOW HAVE YOU APPROACHED THESE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS WITH YOUR TEAM AND HOW HAVE THEY RESPONDED TO IT?
“We talked a lot earlier, especially when we got in November, November is for champions. Meaning your mindset, you get into October you are a contender, November is going to determine whether you are a champion or not. Our guys knew the narrative, I brought it up. I’m part of it now, that we haven’t, for whatever reason, finished strong in the month of November the last two years. I think we were 1-6 in the month of November the last two years. We talked a lot about that, just that we control how we prepare, we control how we practice, and we control obviously how we are going to play. I’ve not brought it up since then, since whenever November was here, I guess three weeks ago, but we did talk about it. We are going to set the standard for who we want to be in the month of November. You should be playing your best football. I think we are. I think we are getting closer to playing that best game, but it’s important that we play well. All the time, but especially in November when there are so many different things going on. You want to be able to lock in and handle business. To our credit, that’s not anything to our coaches have done, I believe it’s our players, especially the ones that have played a lot, that have been here, they know why they were 1-6, they understand. Even though I wasn’t here, they tell me. Hey we are going to do this because this didn’t work and this is how it’s going to be. They’ve done a good job with that.”
HOW MUCH DOES IT HELP YOUR SOS WHEN NMSU BEATS AUBURN?
“I think it is big. The narrative nationally is your conference is not this, not that. We’ve got ourselves, Jacksonville State, Western Kentucky is bowl eligible now, and New Mexico State is playing probably as good as anybody in the country. Our league is tough from top to bottom. Anybody can beat anybody any given week. I think that shows you what New Mexico State is doing. They can go in there and it wasn’t a close game, they dominated. What I hope happens is people start taking our league serious. Are we where we want to be? No, but everybody is committed in this conference to being really good. I think that is showing. FIU played Arkansas really tough, that game was close for a long time. There are good coaches, there are good players here. I think what they did helps our league in general. They are obviously a really good team, New Mexico (State), but that shows there is good players in this league and good football. That win, what they were able to do, will help set up this conference for a long time, from a respect stand point.”
DOES THE CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME AND BOWL GAME COUNT AGAINST PLAYERS’ ELIGIBILITY AND REDSHIRT STATUS AND HOW CLOSE IS VAUGHN BLUE TO PLAYING?
“The championship game and the bowl game don’t count as part of your four. So, anybody that has played up to their four, if they need to be used in those games, they can be and don’t count against them. Vaughn is getting closer and closer. We are hoping that he maybe has a chance to play this week. We will see how practice goes. He is back healthy. Now, it’s just can he take the hits, can he some of those things, because he had a shoulder injury. We are crossing our fingers, hoping that he will be ready to go for this week, but he is back where he’s practicing.”
HOW DO YOU MANAGE THE OUTSIDE NOISE TO MAKE SURE YOUR TEAM DOESN’T THINK THEY CAN JUST ROLL THE BALL OUT AND WIN?
“Well, that’s always a challenge. What we build our foundation on here, is that we’re not playing necessarily for the victory, yes we want the victory, but it’s more so we are playing for the guy beside us. Everytime we are playing for the guy beside us we should play our best. That’s been the mentality all year long. We’ve never talked about going undefeated in the regular season. We’ve never talked actually about being a conference champion. Yes, we know those are things that are out there that we want, but we really work hard on the purpose of why we’re playing. Purpose is one of our values. We talk about all the time you are playing for the guy beside you. Y’all have sacrificed all offseason for 12 guaranteed opportunities. We have an opportunity to finish those 12 games that we’re guaranteed, undefeated. I believe our team knows the importance of it. Obviously there are distractions that are going on, the travel, Thanksgiving, there are a lot of things that can take us away. We know we’ve got to be locked in for that. I expect our team to play well because yes we are playing for the win, but more importantly we are playing for the man beside ’em.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU WATCH THE SCOREBOARD OF OTHER TEAMS LIKE TULANE AND TOLEDO?
“I’m aware of it. I’m not necessarily paying attention all the time. During the week, if you are done with your stuff and there is a MACtion game on, you can see that during the week and who’s playing. We played Bowling Green and Buffalo earlier, so we are familiar with the teams there. I check the scoreboards and I see if a Tulane, or whoever, because I enjoy college football. I am aware of it but I am not studying it to where their schedule is, I don’t know any of those things. What I tell our team is, and we’ve not talked a lot about that as far as what’s out there. I just tell them, we’ve got to handle what’s in front of us. You hope what you do, and if you handle that business, I will find every talking point possible, I can promise you that, if we can handle our business, to defend our team, defend our conference, to the people it needs to be defended to.”
YOU STAYED AT 25 FOR 2 STRAIGHT WEEKS BEFORE GOING TO 22 THIS WEEK, DO YOU THINK VOTERS HAVE A RELUCTANCE IN BELIEVING IN YOU GUYS?
“You can use the word respect, maybe, or a lack of it from a stand point, typically if you win and you are in the top 25 and somebody loses in front of you, naturally you move forward. I bet if you go back and look that is probably never happened before in the past few years, that is probably the first time in history the first one that has ever happened to that somebody didn’t move. It’s not like we won by one point, we won by a lot. I do think there is a lack of respect, maybe it is for the conference, or what they deem our schedule, I know the narrative, but also I think if you look at some of the teams in our league and who they’ve played and who they’ve beaten, and who we’ve played and who we’ve beaten out of conference and in conference, I think it stacks up. Maybe as we continue to go, our conference will get more recognized that we’re not just the worst conference in the history of football, that there is actually good players here and good coaches. I believe that. If you look at the coaches that are in this league, they’ve all done well at prior places. They’ve been at high level places from the NFL on down, they’ve won at a lot of places. We might not be, conference wise, recognized because of what happened, who we lost, but the people we’ve gained and the coaches, they’ve brought challenging teams, great coaching ability, this league is going to be really, really good. I believe that. I’ve been in the Sun Belt when it was in its infancy and everybody thought it wasn’t good. You can see what people view that now. We are in the same place right now, this conference will be really good and get recognized. We just need people to start taking more look at it.”
IS THERE ANYTHING WITH UTEP THAT JUMPS OUT TO YOU ON TAPE?
“Offensively, they are huge up front, offensive line wise. They are going to get in, not to get technical, but they are going to get in two tight ends and two running backs, and try to run it down our throat. Nobody does that hardly. They are very big and physical from an offensive standpoint. We don’t see that. That’s going to be a huge challenge for us from that stand point.”
“Defensively, they’ve got a lot of older guys, very aggressive. They’ve got two of the highest rated guys, it’s called PFF, two of the highest graded guys in defense in the conference. They’ve got some really good players. They are very aggressive. I don’t know much about anybody else as far as staff wise and all that, obviously not coached against anybody from that stand point.”
“I know this, we are trying to be undefeated, they are trying to make a season. We are going to get their best shot. If we’re not ready to give our best shot, then we are going to come home with a loss, I believe that. We can’t roll the ball out and beat anybody. We have to prepare well. If we go out there with that mindset we will go out there with a loss. Then everybody will be what happened to you next week. We have to be ready to play.”
WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND WHEN SALTER WAS GOING HEAD OVER HEELS INTO THE END ZONE?
“We told him before he went out there, run out of bounds, run out of bounds. No matter what happens, run out of bounds. He is a competitor. What makes him really good is he thinks he can score and do everything every time. You do that and you just… realize how valuable you are. Especially in a game, what was the score, 42-10 or whatever it was, just run out of bounds. We will snap it again. We’ve got good running backs. Snap it again. He is growing and he’s learning. It would be different if it was the 1 yard line. It looked like he was trying to Michael Jordan it from the five yard line. Anyway, glad he’s ok.”
DOING ANYTHING DIFFERENT FOR THANKSGIVING THIS WEEK?
“Yeah, we are practicing. We will do something Thursday. We will celebrate that. We will have practice Thursday morning and then we will have a family Thanksgiving with our players and any of our family members and all that and settle down. We will let our non-travel men that aren’t traveling for the game, let them go home for a few days. We will get ready to go. Coaches will have players over to their house on Thursday night and then we will practice Friday morning.”
“I believe this team more than anybody is very routine based. We try to keep them in a very similar routine. I broke that routine earlier in the year and it was like the worst practices we’ve ever had. I learned that. We need to be very routine based. So, it makes me nervous because they don’t have classes. We are having study hall yesterday, we will have study hall today. Do people still call it study hall in 2023? We are still having that, just to try and keep them as much routine as what they are used to. We will use this time like yesterday, it is the week of being thankful. What are you grateful for? We do talk a lot about that and who you are grateful for because it is a time of reflection.”
