Liberty head coach Jamey Chadwell met with the media on Thursday afternoon as the Flames continue to prepare for the 2023 season. You can also watch the press conference on our YouTube channel, the video is also below. We will plan on live streaming each of Coach Chadwell’s press conferences this season.
Here is everything Coach Chadwell had to say, beginning with his opening statement.
“We adjusted our schedule for Tajh’s funeral, obviously, Saturday. Moving up the Fan Fest and the scrimmage to tomorrow. We started this week really trying to focus on, after evaluating the scrimmage Saturday, we call it moving day. Some guys moved up or moved down. Really trying to focus on the guys at the positions they have earned and trying to see some situational football as far as third down and red zone, two minute, etc., really trying to focus on that. Then, try to narrow down some of the competitions that are still going on, especially at the quarterback position. If we’ve got four guys competing, cut it down to three or cut it down to two, that was our goal, focus this week. Made some good progress the last few days as a team.”
“I think we are headed in a good direction. Obviously, still dealing with some of the challenges that we are. It’s been challenging, to say the least, to try to navigate both sides of that issue, but I think our team has handled it and adjusted the best that you could expect them to do as we continue to move forward and get ready for tomorrow. School starts Monday, then get ready for our first opponent.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE ONE SIDE OF THE BALL IS FURTHER ALONG THAN THE OTHER?
“I think everybody has had their days a little bit. I think as a whole, defensively is ahead just from a standpoint of D-Line, linebackers, secondary, there are some impact players at all levels there. I think, from an offensive standpoint, when you are trying to determine your quarterback, that slows you down a little bit in developing because you’re trying to figure out who’s going to be that guy. We’ve had some injuries there on the offensive side of the ball that has negated maybe some of the growth you’d like to see because of the injuries. Whether that’s slowed down an install or had some guys moved to some positions that they wouldn’t have to be. If you ask that right now, they are probably ahead overall, but we’ve had some good battles the last few days as far as when we’ve competed with the offense and defense going against each other. That’s going to help harden us and help get us ready for what’s to come.”
HOW CLOSE ARE YOU TO SEPARATING DOWN THE QB BATTLE?
“We discussed a lot where we’re at, what the quarterbacks have done to this point. One of them needs to take that step consistently wise. There are some good things you get excited about and then there are some things that we can’t do that. Every time it seems like somebody is ready to sort of take it they maybe do some things that give you a little bit of pause. Are they ready to be the guy that’s ready to take care of the ball? We’ve narrowed it down from the standpoint of the number of reps the people are getting now than what they’ve done last week. We’ve limited to who’s doing that. We’ve taken that step.”
“Through this week, the rest of tomorrow, and early next week, we’ve got a couple of practices early next week before we really get into our game plan for our first opponent. We will get it narrowed down internally and have an idea from that. The people that are battling for it, I’d love to see just the consistency day to day and really take that step and be that guy.”
“I think we’re close to that. Our plan, our hope is to stick with a guy. I was a backup quarterback, so I know how that goes when if the guy is in there and you think you are looking over your shoulder. Trying to eliminate that so they can feel confident in what they’re doing, but they also have to earn that, take that. We will see how it goes here, it’s up to them a lot too.”
DO YOU THINK YOU GAIN MORE CLARITY IN THE SCRIMMAGE TOMORROW?
“Tomorrow there will be some scrimmage in there, but there will be a lot of practice things we need to do that we got behind on a little bit. I think when we first started this that was going to maybe be a full blown scrimmage. It’s not going to be as much now. There will be some scrimmage time and also some individual things, some team stuff that we need to work on. We’re not going to make a decision based off what happens tomorrow, it’s going to be a culmination of up to this point. If someone goes out and does really well today and tomorrow and maybe somebody else is not as consistent, yeah that’s going to help make that final determination, but we will do it based off culmination and how we see where we want to go and who’s going to help us get to that point.”
“All three, four guys that have been getting tons of reps have really encouraged each other and have done well at times. That’s a positive, I think we’ve got a good group out there that want each other to do well. Once you make that decision, you want it to stay the same, that’s key.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE OVERALL EXECUTION OF THE OFFENSE?
“It’s obviously not where you want it to be at this point in time. Part of that is because you’re trying to determine some key spots. When the one’s go out there and maybe it’s three different quarterbacks, that makes it challenging. We have a lot of guys who are giving phenomenal effort at all positions. Sometimes when you are trying to give all that effort, sometimes you forget some little details, some of those things. When we are executing pretty well, we are moving the ball the way I hoped we can, but we are inconsistent in that. Thankfully we still have some time. I’ve lost count of practices, I think today is 13. We are two practices away from a spring ball, we are 15 in. We are way better now at 13 than we were at 1. It doesn’t mean it’s where we need to be to be prepared for a season. I think the execution consistently, no matter what the situation is where we’re not at. When we do execute, I like what we’re doing. We’re just not consistently doing that and there are some reasons for that. We are juggling some O-Line, we are juggling some receivers, we’ve had some guys banged up some. That makes it harder to be crisp all the time, but we will get there.”
HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO ASSESS THE DEFENSE?
“I think our challenge defensively, the attitude, the effort, the mentality that they choose to play with is what you want. I think the biggest concern as coaches have right now is we have to have an attitude that no matter what the circumstances are we show up to play. If the offense turns the ball over and we’re backed up, you’ve got to go get the ball back and not worry about the circumstances we can’t control and just show up and play. Have that mentality, that defensive mentality. That’s the biggest improvement we need to make beyond the technique and things. It’s just that mentality. The effort is there, the want to is there, now just quit worrying about things we can’t control and go play. That’s the biggest challenge that I think we have to overcome there.”
“From a purely football standpoint I think it’s just developing some depth. We’ve got some good players we just need to have the guys behind them raise their game up because you’ve got to rotate a lot. We are still fighting through those battles there to see who that is going to be a little bit. Can they consistently do it?”
HAS ANYONE STEPPED FORWARD THAT HAVE SURPRISED YOU ON THE D-LINE?
“TJ Bush was here in the spring, but he’s going to play a lot as a freshman. He’s going to contribute. He’s got a chance to be really good. Larry Jones, who just got here this summer, he will find a role somewhere. He doesn’t understand everything completely yet, but I think you will see him play a lot. Bryan Whitehead, the Junior College transfer that just got here, he will play a lot, as well. They both can get after the passer. Still learning how to practice and do the different things and the consistency, but they both have some talent especially at rushing the quarterback that once they figure those out they will be very productive for us.”
SAME QUESTION FOR THE LINEBACKERS?
“I think Tyren and Jolly have done a nice job for us. Tyren is our key over there. He’s had a fantastic attitude. He leads the defense. He doesn’t ever lose his cool. He stays as cool as a cucumber no matter the situation. He’s been tremendous for us. Chike has brought some good stuff for us. Nick Day is another guy we brought in. All of them are going to have a role from there. Aakil Washington is there, who is a solid player. I like the group that we have. We have to get more consistency from most of that group when they are in there. The guys that have made it haven’t played as much but they need to take that next step.”
“Joe Carter has had a tremendous fall camp. He earned the scholarship, not yesterday, but that’s when he was presented with it. He’s earned it since the time that we’ve got here. Joe’s a guy, can we find somebody better, find somebody better, he just keeps showing up and doing his job. If you look up a Flame in the dictionary it’s his picture. Then I would look up Rick James, they look just a like. We call him the super freak because of that.”
“It’s a good group. They’ve got to raise their game. Those guys we have brought in have been a good supplement to that, but they need to take another step so there is complete confidence when they are in and we’re not taking a step back from the guys that are in there at the beginning.”
HOW HAS THE OFFENSIVE LINE ADJUSTED TO THE NEWS OF BRENDAN BEING OUT?
“That’s tough. You had a guy that they played with a long time, the majority of those guys have played with a long time. Then, they adjust to that and then three days later, obviously, with Tahj, they’ve been through a lot, that group. The O-Line is typically your tightest knit group of your team. They do everything together. They hurt for their brother there, obviously, but they have rallied around him. He’s been tremendous. He’s going to make money and go be a real estate guy but he’s coaching with us right now. I think that’s his calling actually. He did a fantastic job as far as still being out there encouraging the young guys.”
“They already had extra motivation to want to play this season, but not having Brendan out there they want to play for him, as well, because this was his last time. He came back for his last year and then is going to miss a significant amount of time. We adjusted, put different people at different places, moved them around to find out where they help us. I think they’ve embraced that. We are starting to gel up there with the guys we feel can prepare and play for us this year.”
“Because he went down, because of some other injuries we’ve had some of those young freshmen come in and have to get meaningful reps, excited about some of them. I think you will see some of them maybe have to play a little bit. I believe it should be our most consistent up there. Hopefully if the surgery goes well for Brendan and we can get him back and that will just add to that down the line. It’s going to be a learning process for some of those guys but I do think they have gotten better and better.”
HOW DO YOU TRY TO GET THE FRESHMEN TO ADJUST TO THE SIZE THEY NEED TO BE WITH LIMITED TIME?
“There is some difference when you come in. It might not be how tall they are or the weight but the strength and the different things they need to be consistent at this level. Aaron Fenimore and Austin Anderson, they are both rotating with the 2’s. They are getting tons of reps right now. Cal Grubbs who also came in is a guy that is in the rotation. Those three guys are part of that freshman class. They all work extremely hard. They all care about football. They are doing everything they can to put themselves in that position. It is what it is. Those guys understand their number might be called. To their credit, they’ve worked hard through this and tried to put themselves in a position they can play.”
DO YOU EXPECT GADLIN TO STAY AT RIGHT GUARD?
“X’Zauvea can play any position. We’ve repped him at center as well just in case something happens. With the depth issues we have there, we feel like we might have some tackles that can play and moved X’Zauvea inside to the guard to solidify where Brendan got hurt. Once that happened, we started looking around to where we needed to put him. That was a move that we thought we could do. We put Harri inside as well, who had been playing tackle, he’s now at guard and he’s gotten better there. We’re trying to put ourselves in a position where guys can play multiple positions in case the worst thing happens and you lose guys to injury. We know we got young freshmen, but we know they are going to hit a wall at some point so we’ve got to get some guys who have been here, got to get them to play as many positions and learn in case something does happen.”
“The Washington Commanders reached out to us and sent us something, the University of Virginia, Coastal, University of Oregon, FIU, New Mexico State sent us some things during this timeframe. We are very appreciative of them for doing that. I wanted them to know that it means a lot to our team, our staff, personally, just for thinking about us. There are a lot of things going on for them to take the time to send some things. Army as well, I forgot Army. To do that, that means a lot to Liberty football and we appreciate y’all.”
