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

Q. Personally, how are you going to prepare yourself for Monday’s game?

BENTLEY HANSHAW: I will make sure I get good sleep at night. I will take care of my body nutrition-wise and continue to spend time with my coaches and the offense and study what we are doing and studying their defense. Really, the process just stays the same. Going back to selection day.

Q. Going back to Selection Sunday, talk about the feelings you experienced when you knew that you were coming to the Fiesta Bowl.

BENTLEY HANSHAW: There was a lot of mixed emotions. We thought if we were going to play in the New Year’s Six that it would be the Peach Bowl. I was super excited, because I’m from the West Coast and to go to Arizona, it’s super cool. You hear what needs for us to go, and those things happened. It’s funny how you are still on edge, waiting to find out what was happening. It was so exciting and a really cool moment.

Q. You are coming into this game as an underdog. How do you focus on your game, and not let all the hype get to you?

BENTLEY HANSHAW: I think you just embrace whatever scenario you are in. An underdog can be a cool story, like, what an opportunity to go play against a great team when nobody thinks you can win, and how cool of a situation is that to get to be the underdog and go out and surprise people.

Q. How have you been killing the nerves? This is a pretty big game for your school. How have you been able to still focus on the game, but also kind of relax?

BENTLEY HANSHAW: I think this team has done well because the maturity of a lot of different players and leaders, when you have that, I think people realize this is a great opponent and a great venue. If you approach it the same way, having that mindset throughout the whole season and right now, I think calms the nerves and gets you ready to go.

Q. This is Coach [Jamey] Chadwell’s first year with the team. How were you able to build the bond and camaraderie on this team so quickly and accomplish what you have and make it to this point?

BENTLEY HANSHAW: I think camaraderie is not that great when it’s forced. But when people are just easy-going, down-to-earth guys, it’s really easy to build friendship and camaraderie. I think this coaching staff is that and that’s something I noticed right away when they got here last year.

So their personality and their ability to be down to earth has made it so easy for the entire team to just buy in and get to know each other well and enjoy playing this game together.