For the first time since Sunday’s media day, Coach Freeze met with the media following the team’s 5th practice of fall camp on Wednesday. Here are the main takeaways.
Buckshot with no interceptions thus far
One of the biggest areas needed for improvement with starting quarterback Buckshot Calvert is to reduce the 18 interceptions he had in 2018. So far, he’s done a great job in camp with that.
“To this point in camp, we haven’t had an interception yet for Buckshot which was number one on my list,” Freeze said. “The guy threw, I don’t know how many yards last year but a bunch, but he threw 18 picks and 22 touchdowns. We’ve got to get that down to 5 picks. I did think we could help him, myself and (QB coach) Kent (Austin). To this point, I think we’ve seen some evidence of that.”
Injury report
The Flames have suffered their first two somewhat serious injuries of camp, as wide receiver Damian King and cornerback Kei’Trel Clark have both gone down. Freeze said that King suffered a sprained MCL and Clark had a grade 2 shoulder sprain of the AC joint.
King missed all but 3 games in 2018 due to injuries. His absence allowed D.J. Stubbs to explode onto the scene and finish 2nd on the team in receiving yards.
We highlighted Tre Clark and Tank Land’s story of how they ended up at Liberty earlier this week, but he’s been turning a lot of heads in camp. If he’s healthy, he will play this season.
“Unfortunately he got dinged yesterday,” Freeze said of Clark. “He was having a heck of a camp. Hopefully it won’t be long, but he’s going to play this year provided he’s healthy because he’s really, really talented.”
Newcomers standing out
When asked which newcomers have stood out so far this camp, without hesitation Coach Freeze said TreShaun Clark.
“He’s good,” Freeze said. “He’s real good. Tank Land, Tre (Clark), Braydon Monday is going to be a really good player. Obviously, the JUCO kids, sometimes I don’t think of them as newcomers, but Elijah James needs to put a little weight on him but he’s got long leverage, makes our D-Line look different. Devonte Lloyd got a burst, need to get a little better shape. William Green same. Those corners and those two defensive ends, not that I’m disappointed in any of the others, but they jump off the page at you. They could see some time this year.”
TreShaun Clark is a 6’3″, 230 pound defensive end product from Cape Coral Florida. He was named the Defensive MVP of the all-state all-star game. Clark lost part of his finger in a spring game in 2018.
Running back update
We’re continuing to keep our eye on the running back competition where the Flames are trying to decide who will get the carries this season. R-SR Frankie Hickson and R-JR Peytton Pickett are the frontrunners while R-SO Frank Boyd, R-JR Joshua Mack, R-FR Troy Henderson, and FR Treon Sibley are fighting for reps.
“More competition there than I thought it would be,” Freeze said of his running backs. “I think the way people respond to competition it tells alot about them. We’ve got some that are wanting the competition, and we got some are disappointed they aren’t getting as many reps. How they handle that will ultimately, kind of, determine where they are in the pecking order. It’s not easy, I get that. There are freshmen that have been told they are the all-stars on the team and here they are now and their reps have diminished and they may be getting beat some.”
Practice schedule
The Flames got into some situational drills on Wednesday, looking at 2nd and long and 3rd down plays. Thursday is a mandatory day off for the team as the coaches will get caught up on film. Friday, the team will begin to install some red zone packages and Saturday will be a situational scrimmage. The team will go through an entire pre-game like ritual for the scrimmage and will do the same thing on two more occasions giving them three dress rehearsals before the real thing on August 31st against Syracuse.
Freeze quote of the day
“We’re not talented or deep enough to go out and play this FBS schedule and not have fanatical effort. If we want to win, we’re going to have to do every little thing exactly right. Does our roster look like a lot of the teams we’re going to play this year? Probably not, but I’ve seen teams that didn’t have the best roster win games. I’ve coached a few of them. I’ve been on the other end where there were teams that didn’t have as good of a roster that beat me too.”
