BATON ROUGE — New LSU head coach Nick Saban took the LSU football team through its first full scrimmage of the spring season Saturday afternoon in Tiger Stadium.
Saban said he was satisfied with the performance of the team, considering the amount of responsibility that was placed on the players in their first scrimmage.
“Overall from a game standpoint, I’m pleased,” Saban said. “We put a lot on these guys. We made them signal in the plays and go out there and play on their own, which they haven’t had to do yet with the offense and defense. We got some turns with the special teams, not significant ones, but enough to get our specialists work. I think we’ll use this as an opportunity to learn and grow and improve. I think you improve a lot from your first to your second game, and hopefully we’ll be able to improve a lot from our first scrimmage to our second.”
The only negatives that were evident in the scrimmage were dropped passes by the Tiger receivers and the loss to a knee injury of wide receiver Ed Dangerfield late in the workout.
“We saw a lot of good things out there today,” Saban said. “I think the overall intensity was good. I think from an execution standpoint, when we watch the films we’ll see there were a lot of dropped balls and some mistakes out there. But the players were out there trying to compete and they were trying to concentrate. I think there has been a lot of things thrown at them, and with seven days of practice, this being our eighth day, being a scrimmage, I’m sure there’s a lot of things we’ll look to improve upon.”
Both of LSU’s quarterbacks, Josh Booty and Craig Nall, worked with the first team. Booty completed 16 of 31 passes for 170 yards, one interception and three touchdowns. Nall hit on 16 of 36 passes for 224 yards, one interception and three touchdowns.
“We mixed it up with the quarterbacks,” Saban said. “They both got a chance to work with the ones (first team). We wanted them both to get a chance, and I think they did. They both did okay. I can’t honestly say right here that one did better than the other. I’m sure once we look at the film maybe we’ll see some differences, but right now I couldn’t see any major differences that I could say about that just walking off the field. I just think we dropped too many balls and we need to make progress in the passing game and our ability to protect the quarterback.”
Josh Reed led all receivers with four catches for 110 yards, including a 50-yard touchdown pass from Nall. Dangerfield and Abram Booty had four catches each with Dangerfield totaling 47 yards and Booty 51.
On other scoring plays, Josh Booty threw a 45-yard touchdown pass to walk-on running back Elice Parker to cap a 65-yard drive, Nall threw a four-yard scoring strike to Solomon Lee on an 18-yard drive and Josh Booty threw three yards to tight end Eric Edwards in a goal line situation drill.
Freshman All-America wide receiver Jerel Myers caught three passes for 38 yards, including touchdown passes from both Nall and Booty in two minute situations.
LaBrandon Toefield led all rushers with 70 yards on 16 carries, but Domanick Davis rushed for 46 yards as he carried only eight times. Davis was limited in his carries by design to get more work for other running backs.
Defensively, Kenderick Allen and Kareem Mitchell each recorded quarterback sacks while Shane O’Toole picked off a Nall pass and Fred Booker intercepted Booty once.
Punter Donnie Jones looked strong, punting four times for a 44.7-yard average, including two kicks of 55 yards each.
Placekicker John Corbello was two of four on the day, making field goals from 24 and 44 yards while missing from 45 and 22 yards out.
The Tigers will take the day off Sunday before returning to the practice fields Monday, Wednesday and Friday of next week. The Tigers will scrimmage in Tiger Stadium again on Saturday.
LSU will wrap up its spring practice season on Saturday, April 29, with the annual Spring Football Game, slated to begin at 1:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 for adults in advance and $10 on the day of the game. Tickets for LSU students and children 12 and under are $3 at all times.