Liberty head coach Jamey Chadwell met with the media on Tuesday as he recaps the Flames’ win at New Mexico State as well as look ahead to this week’s contest against UTEP. Check out the full video and transcript from his press conference below.
“Obviously, late night for the Flames there, and it wasn’t pretty, but so thankful to be able to find a way to win it. Anytime that you’re not playing as well as you hoped, you’re looking for some type of, maybe a jump start, to get your team going in the direction you want them to go. To be able to finish that game and find a way to win there in the fourth quarter, when it looked just bleak the whole time, really proud of the character of our team.”
“There’s some things that we did to put ourselves in some situations, there’s things they did well against us. But what a great way for our program, hopefully, to continue to move forward. It’s hard to win, and it’s not easy to do, and our guys are learning that. We found a way to do it. So, I’m pleased with that. There’s a lot of challenges going out there, late kick and all those things, but our guys found a way to do it. Hopefully, as we come back and get back to practice this morning, we’ll learn from the things we need to and get ready for a really good opponent coming in.”
You said maybe you got away from the run too much, what are those conversations like after the game talking about playcalling and those type of things?
“You always talk about what could be done better, or what were they doing to us? As you go back and look at the game, we obviously struggled on third down, but if you make a proper read on this, and you maybe don’t drop the pass here, and some of those things. Then, you look at it, maybe that game goes completely different. As you go back and look at it, we obviously didn’t let Cooley touch the ball enough early on, and so that’s one of the things as a coach you go back. I think he had three carries in the first half, and which is just not wise on our part. I think those are things that part of that going three and out too, you’re not executing and making some plays and some penalties and such. It’s more about not necessarily, hey, why were we calling this and more, hey, we gotta make sure the guys that need to get the ball are getting the ball and maybe sticking to that a little bit more when things aren’t going our way a little bit.
“Great learning opportunity for us to learn from that. There’s some things, yes, you wish you’d have done differently, or maybe you started doing earlier, as hindsight, but we got it fixed when it needed to be fixed. If you look at it statistically, you end up with, I think, 470 something yards, and over 200 rushing again, and all that stuff. But we obviously hold ourselves to a high standard. Think we should just be running everybody up and down the field and that’s not the case. Sometimes, as the head coach, that you expect it to be…we should be doing this easy, easy, easy. It’s not easy. It’s hard. And the other team has been scheming for you all summer, all those things, We get schemed throughout spring, and all those things, because our offense is different. So, guys are really putting a lot of time into doing that. We got to do a better job offensively to making sure once we see how they’re defending us, to go on to the answers that we need to go to.”
“Really, more disappointed in just overall execution things, whether it was some penalties that got us behind the sticks or just not executing one of the play calls, or maybe not making the play when it’s there. That’s the thing that really, if we’re playing and making the plays that are there to be made, not spectacular ones, just the normal ones, then it’s probably a better, different discussion.”
How much growth have you seen out of TJ Bush?
“I’ve been kidding with him last week…he changed his number, and I told him I missed 23, missed a young guy that was just happy to be playing and loved playing. Not saying that he wasn’t, but I think sometimes when you have so much success, that you think it comes natural and it’s just always going to be there. TJ is the type of player that can be a player of the year type guy. He’s got that ability, he’s got that mindset. He’s very smart, and he’s improved tremendously. Wat we need, what this team needs from him, is just consistency every day, bringing the energy, bringing the juice the way he did.”
“We’re pleased with his progress. I think it’s hard, you have an unbelievable year. It’s hard to be a freshman All American. Then, there’s typically a sophomore slump. You hear about that all the time. But he’s put in his mind to continue to grow, continue to get better.”
An update on Jay Hardy and also Juju Gray?
“Jay, we’re fortunate. Jay’s not going to require surgery. We’re a little upset, there was a high low there on that play. It didn’t get called. He’s obviously going to miss time. He’ll probably be out anywhere from 4-6 weeks, hopefully getting back in that time frame somewhere there, but he will avoid surgery, which is a good thing for him.”
“Juju has a has a lower leg injury, and so he’s probably like a week to week, maybe there’s a chance this week. It just depends on how he recovers. We’re not counting on it, by any means, but hopefully, from a recovery standpoint, hopefully we’ll get him back sooner rather than later.”
Grade out the defensive line performance through two games?
“If you look at the previous game we played nine guys, which is unheard of on the line. We were able to rotate some guys, and obviously Jay going down, some other guys had to step in. We have an opportunity there to really control the control line of scrimmage from a run standpoint. If you look at both games that we played, we’ve given up one big play from a screen pass, one big play from the run, and some tackling issues, but besides that, that front line has done a really good job of controlling the line of scrimmage.”
“If you look at last week’s game, we gave up 155 yards in the first quarter. We gave up 36, 19 and 60 in the second, third, and fourth, so they got better. We go as they go. We have that big line there can really be the key, the strength of our team, and we just gotta learn how to come out of the get go and be ready to rock and roll from that standpoint. If we’re going to be the type of team this team can be, they’ve got to carry us up there from a certain standpoint of that front seven, specifically, own that line of scrimmage and turning teams to where they have to throw the ball. That hopefully gives us more opportunities to get sacks and different pressures and more turnovers.”
“What people try to do to us, they try to run the ball and keep our offense off the field a little bit because they think we’re explosive. We’re supposed to be explosive anyway. We’ve not been there quite yet, but that’s the game plan. If we can take that away from and make teams one dimensional, then that gives us an opportunity to get some more sacks and create turnovers like we did.”
What are you and the leadership council doing to address the penalties?
“We’ve moved people down the depth chart because of it. I’ve suspended somebody because of it. So, we’re doing a part there. I told our guys that, I can run you, but I’m gonna take things that you truly care about. It’s not like guys are trying to go out and do this. In the heat of the moment, we’re not responding in a good way. Our Unity Council really challenged them on that by position. We’ve gotta be able to control our emotions. What everybody’s gonna do now, and if you go back and look at some of those, some of them should be on the other team, but we’re getting caught. Why? Because that’s what people think we are, and we are what reality is. Perception is reality. Reality is we’re undisciplined. Challenged the Unityunion Council on that. I have removed some guys from starting positions or reduced playing time because of those. So hopefully, they will get the message.”
UTEP is coming off a tough loss but you don’t take anybody for granted coming in here.
“Have you seen us play? We can’t.”
Your impressions of them? What have you seen?
“One, you know, Coach Walden brings great energy. He brought a lot of guys with him from his previous stop. It’s not like it’s a brand new team, and they’re trying to learn. He brought a lot of guys in that knows his system on both sides of the ball. To me, they’re a team that it looks like they’ve been together longer than actually what they have because of the way they can play. There’s a lot of continuity because of who he was able to bring in.”
“Two they play extremely hard, play with unbelievable effort. They don’t quit. If you look at Nebraska game, they got beat by a decent amount, but they really played that game well. Then, they were leading this whole game, their previous game, and just like us had some penalties that went against them, and those penalties really hurt them in some key situations. Obviously, they’re going to get that cleaned up, hopefully, like we will. If they don’t have those things, they’re 1-1 and feeling confident.”
“For our team, we know what we’re learning is we’re circled (on everyone’s schedule). We’re circled. We have to circle those teams. Instead of let’s just see when we come out. We have to go after it. We have to learn how we have to go after people. We’re circling you. We know they’re coming and they’re going to play hard and excited about playing here. They’re not going to be nervous about playing here. They played at Nebraska that seats 90 or 80 or whatever that was. They had maybe 40-something-thousand there (for their home opener). So, it’s not like they’re going to be intimidated coming in here. They’re going to come in here with confidence to play and confidence to win. We have to make sure that we’re the most energized and the team that’s most ready to play.”
