Salina Liberty Playbook - Back to the Fundamentals

The Salina Liberty are in the middle of back-to-back bye weeks. After a full week off, the team is back in Salina getting their legs back under them and focusing on the small things. They’ll return to action in Week 11 when the Billings Outlaws, whom the Liberty beat 43-37 in Week 7, come to town. 

Back at it

The Salina Liberty gave the team the entire last week off, allowing them to spend time with family and rest and recoup from the first eight weeks of Arena Football One action. Head Coach Heron O’Neal took advantage of that time to go home and visit his parents in Chicago and enjoy some good home cooking. The team got back to the grind on Monday and followed it up with practice on Tuesday. Wednesday will be weight training focused, with a full practice to follow on Thursday. The team has some personnel decisions to make after a week of practice, and then it’ll be on to start working on preparing for the Billings Outlaws. 

Back to the Fundamentals 

I asked Coach O’Neal what we thought of the double bye. Was it good to have back-to-back weeks off, or would it be better to jump right back in? He loves the action of the games, but the double bye has been nice. It gave them all a chance to relax, and now they get a whole week to get their legs back under them and get back to the basics. He’s treating this week a lot like training camp and getting back to the fundamentals. “We’ve gotten better in every single ballgame we’ve played this year, so if we can continue to go at that pace, I like our chances moving forward.” Most of the game prep for the Billings Outlaws will take place next week. O’Neal wants to “focus on what we need to do and continue to improve what we need to do.” No plans are set yet, but prep for the Outlaws might include getting the team together to watch them play the Southwest Kansas Storm Saturday evening on VICETV.