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

Q. Is this like a Wing-T offense or is this like triple option? Or is it kind of a hybrid of both of those?

QUINTON COOLEY: That’s a really good question. I think people really call it like a spread triple option. I went Wing-T in high school. It’s nowhere near that type of thing, but certain things like power, trap, certain things, it’s the same.

But the Wing-T is totally different from this. I think the coaches and other people just call it the spread option because you have a bunch of motions and this stuff, and you have a running back that can go in option with them. But the same thing can be a throw. I can’t explain it to you. I know it’s confusing. I just run the plays. I don’t know the name it’s called. So I say spread triple option, to be honest.

Q. Being a running back, growing up on the East Coast, was there a running back that you watched in college and the pros that you said, I want to be like that? I want to take bits of his game or bits of another player’s game and you want to incorporate that into the way you run the ball?

QUINTON COOLEY: Really, when I was younger, I watched Reggie Bush. I watched him and LaDainian Tomlinson and all of them. But the older I got, my biggest number one fan is my cousin. Rashid Campbell. He wore 20 and I wear number 20. I watch him to copy his game, to be honest.

I wasn’t that much of an NFL college guy because I really don’t know nothing about it. That’s what I grew up with. But just watching him and to see how great he was doing at sports and stuff, I wanted to be like him. He was my role model.

Then the older I got, bigger guys, I picked stuff off different people and then I started to watch Saquon Barkley. He was a dog. He was really different. I grew up an Oregon fan, and that was my dream school. LaMichael James, and stuff like that. So just picking different things off of that and then, like Jerome Bettis, and just doing that. That’s when I got bigger. Okay, he’s running over people. I like that type of ball. So just watching them people. It wasn’t one person. It was different people.

Q. What does this mean for the program, the fans, alumni of Liberty to be in a game like this?

QUINTON COOLEY: It means the most, honestly. We say this is the biggest game in school history, honestly, for us. The program, more people seeing what Liberty is about and the sports is really good and stuff. The program is really loving it and also it really means anything with them, because you have people that really don’t know where Liberty is at and believes in Liberty and different things and sometimes it’s hard being a Christian school.

A lot of people that don’t believe in the stuff that Liberty does or what Christian does. Just having a football team and everybody coming together for this program and the fans showing that, like, these guys, we keeping our faith and playing ball, and that can go a long way.

Q. Being a Pac-12 writer, media guy for all of these years and having family that are Oregon Duck fans, I know how just absolutely nuts that fan base is. What about Liberty’s fan base? Are you guys bringing it on Monday? Do you do crazy stuff like Duck fans do? What is the fan base like?

QUINTON COOLEY: Our fan base is crazy. We have something called the Lunatics. We have Lunatics and Jokers. They travel to all games. They have the clown-faced masks and no shirts and painted everywhere. The fan base is amazing.

Like, if you go to our stadium and watch our games on the left side of the stadium, if you walk to the left side of the stadium, the whole bottom row is the student section and it’s packed every game. The student section and then you have people on the other side. Nobody can sit in the bottom row besides students. They pack it all out, and it’s wild.

Like I said, everybody is just painted all up, ready and hyped. They really love Liberty. The fans really love Liberty. I remember when I had my first big game against Jacksonville State, when I walked in the room, the kids didn’t really know me. And they were like: There he is. You could hear them whispering: That’s Quinton Cooley. Please win. Please win. We want the championship game to be at Liberty.

Just seeing their program and the program really trusting in us and really wanting us – just really seeing our student section really love football.