LOOKING FOR DEFENSIVE IMPROVEMENT

In the loss at Jacksonville State, Liberty gave up 346 yards rushing to the Gamecocks. This is the same JSU team that run for over 300 yards against Liberty last season. Despite a new coaching staff and over 50 new  players on the roster, it was expected that Jax State would once again center their game plan around the ground attack behind running back Cam Cook and dual-threat quarterback Gavin Wimsatt.

There are a lot of reasons this happened. Part of it is that Cook is a really good back, maybe the best Liberty will face this season. There were also some missed assignments and missed tackles. Bottom line, it must be improved if the Flames are to have the season it wants to have this year.

“Missed tackles happen because you assume one guy is going to get him down,” said head coach Jamey Chadwell. “We got one guy that makes a great play on somebody, then everybody else is sort of standing around. If you are swarming to the football the way you should be, then maybe you tackle him for four yards instead of 15. Those are the things that are fixable. That will be fixed where guys are swarming to the ball. Missed tackles happen. Everybody is getting missed tackles, but you don’t want to have guys standing around thinking that guy’s going to make a tackle and he takes it 20,30 yards. We can fix that.”

The good news is it is still early in the season. The team can make the adjustments to get to where it wants to be at the end of the season.

“It’s disappointing when you have expectations of how you want to play individually and as a group, when you don’t do it,” Chadwell said. “It hurts you when you have high expectations. (The team) was not feeling good about how they performed overall. You pick them back up and move forward.”

4-5 IN LAST 9 GAMES

Liberty started a jaw-dropping 18-1 in head coach Jamey Chadwell’s first 19 games as head coach. This included the 2023 CUSA Championship and trip to the Fiesta Bowl where the Flames suffered its only defeat during this stretch at the hands of Oregon.

Since then, Liberty has struggled, winning just four out of the team’s previous nine games following this past Saturday’s loss at Jacksonville State. The slow patch began with an upset at Kennesaw State, 27-24, Oct. 23, 2024. The Flames have also lost to Jacksonville State (twice, 31-21, 34-24), Sam Houston (20-18), and Buffalo (26-7) during that span. The Flames haven’t lost five games in a nine game stretch since the 2021 season.

Chadwell has only had one other span during his time as an FBS head coach with a losing record spanning that many games. In 2019, Chadwell and Coastal Carolina had two three game losing streaks with a win sandwiched in between. Following that 1-6 span, Chadwell and the Chanticleers won 12 straight. Chadwell also lost three straight games to end the 2022 season, his final three games coaching at Coastal. He then came to Liberty when he won 13 straight.

“We’re not going to look backwards,” Chadwell said in his press conference th is week. “I told our team, ‘We didn’t get the job done (at Jax State), but we’re moving forward because we have a good opponent out of conference and we’ve got to get back on the horse.”

OPEN KICKING COMPETITION THIS WEEK

Liberty had an ongoing competition at who would handle the field goal and extra point responsibilities into the final week of training camp between Jay Billingsley and Brayden Beck. The Flames ultimately elected to go with the Gardner-Webb transfer Billingsley. He missed his first kick of the season on Liberty’s first drive of the season, a 37-yarder against Maine. This past week at Jacksonville State, he made a 35-yard kick on the last play of the first half. Then, late in the third quarter, he missed a 27-yard kick. After that miss, the Flames turned to Brayden Beck the rest of the way to handle the extra point attempts. Coach Chadwell says it is going to be an open kicking competition once again this week.

“We’ve got to make our kicks,” Chadwell said this week. “We’ve missed two kicks now in two games. First game – Ok, new time, new place, but the kick that we missed last Saturday, it was a chip shot. You’ve got to make those kicks. Those are huge momentum turns. We’re going to open it back up this week and see. The thing about Jay which was great during fall camp, he was 42 of 45, which is pretty dang good. Now, he’s 1 out of 3. He’s missed two. We’ve got to make those kicks. I know he’s not trying to miss those on purpose, but you’ve got to be able to handle the pressure. So, we are going to open it back up. We will see. We might trot somebody else out there. We will see how it goes this week.”

CHANGES ON THE O-LINE

Liberty had a new starting lineup in Week 2 at Jax State on the offensive line. Erwil Anthony replaced Jack Tucker at right tackle. Then, in the first half, starting left tackle Trey Bedosky went down to injury. The Flames first moved left guard DJ Geth to left tackle and brought Joep Engbers in at left guard. After the weather delay, Tucker returned to the field with Geth going back to left guard. On Tuesday, Chadwell mentioned that Bedosky was currently doubtful for this week, meaning there could be a third different starting offensive line unit this week.

The Flames did allow four sacks in the loss to the Gamecocks, something that Chadwell hopes to be cleaned up moving forward.

“If we put ourselves in a position where we’re in some third and longs and way backed up, we’re not build from a standpoint of where we’re having to throw it every down,” he said. “We gave up some towards the end. I don’t want it to happen. Our quarterback’s got to do a better job of stepping up. Our line’s got to do a better job of blocking.”

INJURY REPORT

Here’s an update on Liberty’s current injury situation:

  • LT Trey Bedosky exited the game this past Saturday in the first half due to a lower body, maybe ankle, injury. He did not return to the game and was noticeably limping on the sidelines. Joker CJ Bazile exited the game this past Saturday in the first half due to an injury to his right foot. He did not return. DT Mike Jarvis exited the game this past Saturday and did not return. Coach Chadwell said all three of them are doubtful for Saturday’s game at Bowling Green.
  • If Bedosky is unable to go, we could see both Jack Tucker (started at RT against Maine) and Erwil Anthony (started at RT against Jax State) get the start at tackle.
  • If Bazile is unable to go, expect Brenton Williams to get the bulk of the work at Joker with Bryson Jennings serving as his backup.
  • If Jarvis is unable to go, there are several options for the Flames at defensive tackle. We could see Bryce Dixon get his 18th career start but first this season as he has played behind Markus Clark. We could also see either Joe Strickland, Nate Pirolli, or DJ Jackson get the start. All three of them have seen playing time on the interior of the defensive line in the first two weeks.
  • WR Tyson Mobley did not make the trip or play in the game at Jax State this past week.
  • Backup QB Ryan Burger is done for the season as he is medically retiring due to repeated concussions.
  • Backup C Cal Grubbs suffered an injury late during training camp and is out for the season.