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

Q. You guys, I think, have handled the noise all year, blocking it out. But here it feels like people are questioning whether you belong here or not. Does that get a little tiring, just to justify that you guys deserve to be here?

X’ZAUVEA GADLIN: I don’t think there’s a point of justification for us. Never in this season has it been proving anybody else wrong; we are proving ourselves right. It’s not like we are out here and just feeding into all the noise and being like, oh, they said this, they said this, they said that. We understand that nobody in the country gives us a chance.

But I had a strength coach when I was a freshman, named Erich Anthony, said this to me when we were playing: It’s the stick that you swing that they don’t see coming that hurts more. What is up to us is how we understand the opportunity that we have and take advantage of that.

Q. How much of an honor is it to go out like this and to be able to represent this school to an audience that largely may have never heard or seen of you before?

X’ZAUVEA GADLIN: It’s kind of surreal. I hadn’t heard or seen Liberty before I got into the portal. I’m proud to shine a light on this little school in Lynchburg, Virginia ‚Äì that nobody heard of, that competes with the BYUs and the Arkansas and the Oregons of the world. That’s not something that you can take for granted at this point.

It’s something that doesn’t happen everywhere. It’s not always thought of or thought about, and I’m just glad to be somebody who is able to be on a platform for the school, ultimately just giving all the honor and joy back to God, of course, and being able to be a lightning rod for the university.

Q. I’m sure you have heard this a million times. What does this big game mean to you and your family and your teammates here?

X’ZAUVEA GADLIN: It means a lot. I never thought that I would be here in my career at all, so being able to end my career on a stage like this is just something that I don’t take for granted. It’s an opportunity 12 teams get every year. So it’s not a lot of people that ever get to be here at this stage, and I’m grateful that we are the ones that get to be here.

Q. What is it like back at school, just the buzz around school? I know people say the national media behind it, but are friends and family just reaching out to you constantly?

X’ZAUVEA GADLIN: Oh, yeah. The university community is huge. They love Liberty football and I think a lot of them are coming today for the pep rally that we will have today. We will have great support, as we have had all year. So I think that’s important. My family has always been supportive of me and my friends have always been supportive, and they have nothing but love for me and for this game and for this opportunity. I’m grateful for that.

Q. How have you been killing the nerves? Are you not thinking about the magnitude of it, or having fun as a team? What types of things are you doing?

X’ZAUVEA GADLIN: Magnitude ‚Äì not to say this in a disrespectful way, but for us, it’s the same that we play all year and we prepared that way every single week, which it was the first game against Bowling Green or conference championship against New Mexico State. It was always preparing to be your best every week. That’s how we approached this, especially once you get to this point, you don’t want to change anything.

All you want to do is be who you are and who you have been so far this year. With the success that we have been able to have, I feel like we have taken this same approach to something that we are doing now and will prepare us well and give us best opportunity.