Liberty only ran about 45-50 plays during the spring game and half of them were done with no tackling. So, it’s tough to get a full read on the 2016 edition of the Flames. With that said, here’s our main takeaways from the game:

  • Wesley Scott was seen on crutches with his right knee in a brace. Following the game, Coach Gill said Scott tore his ACL and he likely will miss the entire regular season. He’s a senior that hasn’t used his redshirt year, so he can redshirt and return in 2017. Regardless, it’s a huge loss. Scott has started 34 games in his Liberty career.
  • Other notables who did not dress included cornerback Jeremy Peters, Damian King, and Will Johnson. Johnson was also on crutches with a brace on his left knee.
  • There wasn’t any special teams plays done during the live scrimmage, but during warmups there were punt drills. Fielding punts were Denvre Daniels, Frankie Hickson, Alpha Jalloh, Didier Moncion, and Cephas Reddick.
  • The starters on offense were Tanner Hartman, Michael Henderman, Dontae Duff, Lucas Holder, Aharown Campbell, Dante Shells, Todd Macon, Stephon Masha, Zac Parker, B.J. Farrow, and Canon Smith. The only change in this group from the pre-spring depth chart is Duff starting on the offensive line in place of Gregg Storey. Duff was the center while Holder was at right guard. Storey did get plenty of reps at right tackle.
  • Masha looked the best of the 3 quarterbacks. He finished the game 12-for-17 for 126 yards and 1 touchdown. We saw a lot more successful deep shots from him than the time he got in place of Woodrum. His best pass was a 50-yard completion in stride to B.J. Farrow. Masha narrowly missed connecting with Dante Shells on a similar pass, he overthrew Shells by about 2 yards. We did see Masha miss a connection with an open Zac Parker about 30 yards downfield on a play that would have clearly been a touchdown. Later, on the same drive, Masha and Parker would connect for a 20 yard touchdown pass on a similar post route.
  • Rudiger Yearick and Bo Swanson split reps with the 2nd team offense. Not much to note from either guy. Swanson did throw an interception which was returned 47 yards for a touchdown by Alpha Jalloh. Yearick was the 2nd QB to get work, if that means anything.
  • Solomon McGinty reached the backfield untouched on one occasion to sack Stephon Masha. GIll raved about the JUCO transfer all spring.
  • Carrington Mosley got a lot of work at running back with the 2nd team offense. He was very productive on his touches. Frankie Hickson and Denvre Daniels also saw plenty of time on the field. Mosley and Todd Macon each had a touchdown run from within 5 yards.
  • There weren’t a ton of new wrinkles we saw from new offensive coordinator Joe Dailey. Most notably is that he could be heard repeatedly yelling at the offense to pick up the tempo.
  • Zach Schreiber was awarded the Luke 2:52 award. Thomas Kennedy was named most improved on offense, while Lucas Irons received the recognition on defense and Elijah Benton on special teams.
  • Oh, and the offense won 57-46.