Liberty Flames College Football Pregame Quote, 12/30/2023

Q. What are your thoughts on how the FCS schools that might want to join the FBS have an increased challenge?

TYREN DUPREE: I don’t know what to say about the $11 million. That’s a lot. But there should be a chance for other teams to show that they can compete at the highest level as well. I think a lot of teams get overlooked because of the analytics and who they’re playing, the strength of schedule.

At the end of the day, the beautiful thing about football, you have to bring it every single Saturday. That’s the biggest challenge. So to be consistent in any conference, any league, that should be an opportunity for any team.

Q. You talked about playing at the highest level. What does playing in the first New Year’s Six game in Conference USA history mean for both you and the program?

TYREN DUPREE: Just means a lot. Our coaches believed in us this year. We never really made it about trying to win a championship or anything like that. We really try to make it about getting ourselves better and elevating our standard.

So every week, we went into it, we were just like playing Liberty this week. We had a faceless opponent all year: Playing ourselves. Just trying to get better. I would just say it’s a testament to the hard work and preparation that these guys have put in.

Q. Coach Chadwell talked about the elevation of Conference USA and how you guys are pushing to be the best Group of Five conference. Can you talk to about the switches right now in college football, and how as a Group of Five school, you guys are being projected as the underdog? But yet you guys are undefeated. Can you talk about what it means to be a Group of Five school going against their last Pac-12 team and the caliber?

TYREN DUPREE: I would say it’s a challenge for anyone, just based on the fact that Oregon is a really good football team. I think that will be a challenge for anybody. But for us to be the Group of Five opponent, saying that we’re the underdog, that’s been all year, really. We really haven’t gotten that much praise because of our conference.

We’ve had notable wins all year for Conference USA. Like New Mexico State, beating Auburn, stuff like that. So I don’t really get the reason for that. But I just hope that we can get a chance to show that we can compete.