11/18/2020 football Edit

Liberty has full attention of NC State's football players

Matt Carter • TheWolfpackCentral

Editor

On Monday, NC State head coach Dave Doeren emphasized the respect that a confident Liberty team, likely playing with a chip on its shoulder Saturday against a Power Five opponent in the Wolfpack, deserves.

The message appears to be getting through to the playersl.

As redshirt junior receiver Thayer Thomas pointed out, all one has to do is see the respective results against Virginia Tech. The Wolfpack went to Blacksburg in its second game of the year riding high off a season-opening win over Wake Forest and came back home to Raleigh at almost dawn humbled in the aftermath of a 45-24 loss to the Hokies.

Yet on Nov. 7, at that same Lane Stadium venue in Blacksburg, Liberty walked away with a wild 38-35 upset win over Virginia Tech. That’s one of eight straight wins thus far in 2021 for the Flames.

NC State Wolfpack football running back Ricky Person Jr. — Running back Ricky Person Jr. is second on the Wolfpack offense with 443 rushing yards. (Ethan Hyman/News & Observer)

“I mean, I think just them beating Virginia Tech alone says a lot about their team,” Thomas said. “I thought Virginia Tech was really good when we played them. So obviously we're going to have respect for them just off that.

“Obviously, they haven't lost a game. It doesn't matter what level of play you're playing, If you're undefeated you have to be really good football team. We look at those two things, honestly, we're going to treat them as any ACC opponent when we play this year.”

Junior running back Ricky Person Jr., one of the top leaders on this team, added that watching film on Liberty adds another layer of respect, but regardless he believes his teammates were going to approach the game with urgency.

“We take every opponent seriously,” Person insisted, before adding, “they honestly got respect. They ranked 20th of the country, 8-0.”

“Like I said, we don't overlook anybody, but from watching them, like watching their players on tape, they actually got some great players over there,” Person added. “Just like coach said, respect the players who deserve the respect, and they deserve respect.”

Thomas noted that defensively Liberty has some similarities to Virginia, running a lot of cover two and cover four defenses with a goal of keeping the opposing offense in front of them.

“We need to take what they give us at first, and then obviously, big plays will come like they do almost every game for us,” Thomas said. “But we need to take advantage of whatever they're going to give us — the hitches, the slants and stuff like that.”