As Liberty finalizes its preparation for Saturday’s season opener against Campbell, head coach Hugh Freeze met with the media to give his final update prior to kickoff.

“I love Thursdays,” Freeze said to begin his press conference. “Thursdays are one of my favorite days of college football. That’s the day we get to finalize everything and your families start coming into town, my mom and dad, high school coach and his wife, my uncles. We’ve got a big birthday celebration tonight for all these August/September birthdays while we are all together. It’s just a good feeling today to know it’s pretty close.”

Below are the 5 most interesting comments from Freeze from his Thursday press conference …

LAST WORD’S ON CAMPBELL

“We’ve got a very difficult opener with one of the better FCS teams that I’ve probably played no matter where I’ve been,” Freeze said of the Camels. “Some unknowns with the number of transfers they have that I think are quality players. It will be a great test for us, but one that we are excited to get out and play, especially at home in front of our people here, our students, our fans.”

“They are huge, athletic, they’ve got a quarterback who runs around and makes plays. They’ve got receivers and tight ends that can play at a lot of places. They didn’t have great numbers on defense last year, but they’ve had an influx of, I think, seven FBS transfers on that side, plus they got their all-conference linebacker back.”

“You just know that they have enough players to scare you. They are well coached. Coach Minter and his staff do a great job.”

INJURY UPDATE

There are no new injury updates from Monday. Daijahn Anthony, Noah Frith, and John Kourtis will be out Saturday, but everyone else should be expected to play. Linebacker Aaron Pierre has missed practice over the past week or two, but he was at practice on Thursday and is expected to play this weekend.

“He practiced today,” Freeze said of Pierre. “He will be able to go on Saturday. Aaron is back. I don’t know how many snaps he will play (Saturday) because he has missed significant practice time, but he certainly looked ready to go today.”

COVID CONCERNS

With COVID cases increasing across the country and among Liberty’s student body, it continues to be a concern for Coach Freeze and his football team.

“I don’t think the COVID issues are going away any time soon,” he said. “I don’t think that’s just a Liberty football issue. I think that’s the nation and the times we live in. You’ve got to handle those and hopefully take the proper precautions to hopefully limit the number of issues we have with it, but certainly I don’t think it’s going to be something that we don’t deal with this season.”

Prior to all students returning to Liberty’s campus in August, the football team went into the same bubble concept it instituted for the 2020 season and had much success with in limiting the impact of COVID on the team and the season.

“We had our tests yesterday and everything was great,” Freeze continued. “Hopefully we can continue that. Even those of us who are vaccinated are not exempt from getting a positive test. I just think it’s something that we’re going to have to deal with throughout the season.”

Liberty has not publicly reported the vaccination rate of its players and staff during the preseason. A number of players did miss practice for a day or two early in training camp after having their second dose of the COVID vaccine, but there is no word as to exactly how many have been vaccinated.

“I plead with my kids to make the best decisions possible to try to protect us so that we can have a season with our team members fully present.”

COACH MESSER RETURNS TO HIS ALMA MATER

Earlier this week Warren Messer was named an assistant coach at Elon his alma mater. He will coach the cornerbacks there. Messer is a former All-American linebacker who played at Elon, and he has been a graduate assistant at Liberty since March 2020 working with the linebackers.

“We wish Warren the best,” said Freeze. “I’m always excited when those young kids get an opportunity to have their own room, get a paycheck, and start their coaching careers. We’re thrilled for Warren, and he’s going to be a great young coach, heck of a recruiter too.”

Eric Ponio will take Messer’s spot as an on the field coach this season. Ponio has been with the Flames since June 2918 where he is a defensive and special teams quality control coach.

“The bad part about that is timing,” Freeze continued. “It’s not great, it wasn’t great for us. Eric Ponio will replace him on the field. He’s someone who was in our building that was a G.A. that knows our stuff. We feel comfortable moving forward with that through this season.”

HURRICANE IDA IMPACT

With Hurricane Ida making landfall in Louisiana and then progressing throughout most of the rest of the Eastern half of the United States, Coach Freeze had a message for those impacted.

“I sent texts to several coaches down in that area. I think most relocated in preparation for their season and the teams themselves, I think, are doing fine. Obviously the areas to which they live and have families and friends and the communities to support them, obviously there has been great damage and still work to be done to repair that. Our prayers are certainly with them.”