Over the course of the season, Flames Nation will be talking to several key members of the football team with our new Player Spotlight feature. We’ve already given the Kent St. rushing attack a lot of attention, but Dri Archer may be the most talented player a Liberty team has gone up against, so we caught up with Scott Hyland to talk a little more about how the Flames plan on slowing Mr. Archer down, as well as discussing the rest of the season.
Scott is one of the most experienced players on a very experienced defense, playing in every game of his first three years. He is considered a very hard worker, and his work has paid off as he recorded 55 tackles last year on his way to All-Conference second team honors. He looks to be even better in 2013:
“This off-season I really wanted to work on being quicker in between the tackles, working on my play recognition.” He also said it was a goal for the linebackers to “cut down on missed tackles”.
He gave us some insight on just how good he feels the defense is this year. “This team is one of the best I’ve been on unity wise, we are all focused on the task at hand, no one is pointing fingers, we are all encouraging one another.” He went on to say “This is the best defense I’ve been a part of, everyone is flying to the ball. We are so deep at defensive backs and D-lineman, and the linebackers are all coming together, this is the closest we’ve ever been.” He even stated that he believes Liberty has “the best defensive line in the nation.”
When we brought up Dri Archer, Hyland sounded confident in his defense, “We respect him, he was voted most exciting player to watch, you have to respect his speed and his ability to just turn on a dime. But I think our defensive line is really going to cause them some problems, we just have to contain him and keep him from making that huge play.”
It is evident that Hyland has embraced a leadership role and has worked on his knowledge of the game. He was confident in the defensive schemes the Flames will be boasting this year “we are just playing our defense, they are going to have to stop us.”
We’d like to thank Scott for the interview, and wish him and the Flames best of luck accomplishing their mission tomorrow at Kent State.
I hope a certain UT-Chattanooga fan on AnyGivenSaturday doesnt hear of his comments, he believes that the Mocs have the “Best defensive line in the nation”