TOs keep Liberty from winning
Liberty’s trip to Pearl-Cohn in Nashville wasn’t a good one before the Crusaders got to the game and lost 49-14.
One of the buses got into a fender-bender on the way up during a time of slow traffic on the highway.
“We should’ve known then things weren’t going to go well for us,” said Liberty head coach Tyler Turner with a chuckle during the drive home on Friday night. “We already made the trip with four starters on defense out, so we knew we were in for a tough one when we got up there.
“I will say I didn’t expect us to give up 49 points.”
The offense moved the ball well for Liberty with the exception of committing four turnovers.
“I think we had more yards than they did at halftime, but we had three turnovers,” Turner said. “Pearl-Cohn’s already good. We didn’t need to help them that much.”
There was at least one positive that came out of the experience. Turner said he hoped some of his defensive players learned they’ve got to tackle fundamentally better if they want to play consistently good football and put themselves in position to win in games against tough teams like Pearl-Cohn.
“We can’t just dive at people,” Turner said. “We’ve got to wrap them up and bring them down. Arm tackling, like we tried at times tonight, won’t cut it.”
Liberty scored first on a one-yard run by quarterback Corey Newble. Pearl-Cohn scored twice in the second quarter and three more times in the third before Newble connected with Rodney Castille for a five-yard pass late in the third for a score.
“The good thing is this game wasn’t a region game, and it wasn’t even against a team in 3A,” Turner said. “So hopefully it will be a while before we play another team that’s physically like them.”