Liberty has completed training camp and switched to game week preparation with the season opener against Maine just nine days away. Yet, the Flames still don’t know who will be behind center when the offense first takes the field on August 30.
“We’ve not named a quarterback yet,” head coach Jamey Chadwell said Thursday morning. ” I think both (Ethan) Vasko and (Ryan) Burger are doing a good job. They’re performing at a good level. We want to make sure we practice as much as we can before we make our final decision there, but I like where both of them have been.”
When Liberty started training camp in late July, Jamey Chadwell said the first nine practices of camp would be pretty close to a wide open quarterback battle between the five guys at the position. Ethan Vasko, Ryan Burger, Michael Merdinger, Jayden Bradford, and Ethan Houck were all vying to become the Flames’ next starting quarterback. Following those practices and the team’s first full scrimmage, Chadwell announced he had narrowed the competition to two in Vasko and Burger, as has been his plan all along.
At the start of camp, Chadwell said his goal was to have the starter penciled in going into the first week of school. Classes started this past Monday, but Chadwell refused to name his starter.
“We will probably name it publicly at some point,” Chadwell said. “We just started our preparation this week. We want to make sure that we’ve dotted all our I’s and our T’s, make sure as we make our decision it is the best one as we are evaluating everything. Experience matters, experience is a big deal. We want to make sure we’ve done everything possible. We have to make sure we’ve given them every opportunity to showcase what they’re about. We’ve done that to this point, but we felt like as a coaching staff we needed a little bit more time. We will name it at some point. I’m not going to keep it a secret too long. I’ve done that before. We just want to make sure we’ve done our due diligence in all the metrics that we’re looking at.”
Is Chadwell concerned that one quarterback hasn’t stepped forward and won the job? It doesn’t sound like it.
“I think it’s a good thing because that means both guys are doing some good stuff,” he said. “If you named one that means probably the other one you’re not confident in. We are confident in either who goes out there.”
Will the battle being so close, Chadwell was asked if both guys could play in the season opener against Maine.
“I haven’t thought about that, but maybe, who knows,” he said. “I think right now we are focused on who is going out there, as far as who is doing well. They both are. We are just focused on trying to make that decision. It could be. We will see what happens her win the next few days.”
Chadwell continued to echo that experience, taking care of the ball and helping move the chains and scores points, as well as consistency are the most important factors into who will win the job.
“We went back and looked and studied any time we put ourselves in bad situations, it’s been hard for us to overcome offensively,” he stated. “Bad situations, 2nd and longs that were self inflected, taken a sack when we shouldn’t. We are really hammering in on those details of who gives us the best chance to not put us in a bad position where we have to be behind the chains. Those are things that we are really hammering on these next few days.”
Vasko, the transfer from Coastal Carolina, is easily the most experienced at the FBS level of this group. He started all 12 games for Coastal in 2024, throwing 14 touchdowns and 8 interceptions with a 55% completion percentage while throwing for over 2,000 yards. During his two seasons at Coastal, Vasko played in 20 games. He completed 224 of his 393 passes for 2,889 yards, 21 touchdowns, and 9 interceptions. A mobile quarterback, Vasko rushed the ball 170 times for 815 yards and 7 scores as he brings something the other quarterbacks in the room don’t possess and that’s significant playing experience at the college level.
Ryan Burger joined the Flames a year ago through the transfer portal, coming over from Appalachian State where he began the 2023 season as App’s starting quarterback before suffering a hand injury in the first half of the first game that caused him to miss the remainder of the season. Burger served as Kaidon Salter’s backup in 2024 at Liberty. He got playing time in five games, most notably in the Bahamas Bowl against Buffalo, where Liberty lost 26-7. Burger started that game as Salter was already in the transfer portal. He completed 4 of 12 passes for 40 yards and was sacked 3 times. He also rushed 11 times for 57 yards. Burger did miss the spring practice sessions due to a concussion suffered in the bowl game.
