Here are some quotes from Coach Gill and a few Liberty players following the Coastal loss.
Coach Gill
“I want to give God all the glory. I appreciate all the opportunities God gives us each and every day. We thank Him for this situation we are in. I know I have faith in our Lord and Savior. I love our football players. I love our team. I love our coaches. Obviously, it comes down to Coastal made more plays than we did, simple as that. They executed when they needed to execute. I felt we had a good game plan both offensive, defensive and special teams, but you have to give credit to Coastal. I guess that’s why they’re the #4 team in the country and they played like it. But I thought our guys really, really played well. I’m proud of ’em.”
Des Rice
“It’s pretty demoralizing. As a team we fought hard for 4 plus quarters. We really wanted this ball game, and to lose like that it’s pretty tough.”
“I really don’t know what the problem is. We fought hard the whole game, and that 4th quarter we didn’t score enough points as we would have liked and we didn’t hold them like we would have liked to. We just have to keep fighting. That’s all we can do.”
“Big game like this, I want to play hard for my teammates. I run hard regardless, but the situation like that, I just want to do everything I can to help my team win.”
“It’s definitely… it sucks. There’s no other way to put it. To lose a game like that it really hurts. I’m not just speaking for myself, but all of my teammates, it sucks. But we just have to come together as a team, stay strong, and finish out the season good.”
(On Coach Gill’s message to the team in the locker room after the game) “Keep your heads up. Don’t abandon each other. Stick together. We’ve got 5 games left to play, and we want to finish out strong.”
Josh Woodrum
“I was talking to somebody earlier, and I think our offense did really good. 52 points should be good enough to win a football game. I’m not knocking our defense or anything, but we need to play better as a team.”
“You’re never really comfortable with only being up 7 or 8, but I thought our defense was going to come out there and shut them down on that last drive. I think they scored in 40 seconds or something like that and we can’t have that as a team.”
“I don’t know which one is worse, this one or ODU. But we really poured everything into this, and we’re down right now.”
“In my opinion we should be 7-0 right now. It hurts losing these close games, but it’s not always about winning. More so than not, it’s about becoming a man, and learning from your mistakes, and learning to press on, and finish the job. “
The effort appears there but the execution does not. At least judging by their comments they haven’t lost faith in each other or the coaching. That’s a huge plus. When that happens, the only thing you can do is replace the coach. I pray they win out and see what happens. Maybe we get lucky and Coastal absolutely melts like us.