BATON ROUGE — LSU head coach Nick Saban addressed the media for 45 minutes Wednesday afternoon about the upcoming 2000 LSU Football Spring Practice session, stressing his goals of teaching success through dedication to the competition and putting the best players in position to win.
The 15-session Spring Practice will begin Monday, April 3 and conclude Saturday afternoon, April 29, with the annual Spring Game.
The Tigers will scrimmage twice, on April 15 and April 22, prior to the Spring Game.
After a successful offseason of weight training and conditioning with Strength Coaches Tom Moffitt and Karl Dunbar, Saban emphasized two important goals for the 2000 Tigers in order to improve upon last season’s 3-8 record.
His first goal was to get his players to be dedicated to the competitive spirit of the game for the entire 60 minutes of the game, to be psychologically tough and to gain the respect of the players in the process.
Secondly, Saban stressed the importance of having the best 22 players on the field in order to maximize the team’s potential.
Before having a chance to evaluate the players individually, he identified three areas which players fit into the system: Players who can win games, players who can keep you from losing games and players who are still developing.
Because he has yet to see any of his players play one down of football, Saban hopes to come out of Spring Practice with a better idea of where each fits in these areas.
On the condition of quarterback Rohan Davey, Saban said that his surgery was successful and that he is rehabilitating in order to put himself in a position to compete for the starting job in the fall.
Davey tore the anterior criciate ligament in his left leg during a pick-up basketball game in late February.
According to Saban, Davey is the only Tiger on the roster who will not participate in Spring Practice. However, he stated that players who may not be 100 percent may still participate in limited roles during the 15 practices.
“There are a few aspects of the game that are very important: the quarterback, turnovers, your running game and first downs,” Saban said. “Therefore, a lot of your success has to do with how your quarterback develops in the system. “I’m excited about the kind of offensive football team that we can have. In the long haul, the player who shows the most consistency will get to play to most. But, it really doesn’t matter who starts.”
NOTE: Nick Saban entered the press conference with a splint the ring finger of his left hand. Saban said that he recently had a pin inserted into his finger after breaking it in a basketball game with his staff. He called these lunch-time basketball games the NBA — the Noon-Time Basketball Association.
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