By Lee Feinswog
Special to LSUsports.net
LSU senior right guard Louis Williams saw a lot of good things from his offensive line in the Tigers’ 58-0 pasting Saturday of Western Carolina. But, just as the Catamounts limp out of Tigertown, the Tigers must look to Houston for its next test.
“The team is definitely coming together. We have a lot of guys who care about each other, which is really important,” Williams said. “If we keep producing this way, and play for 60 minutes the way we did last week, we should have a pretty good season this year.”
Certainly the LSU quarterbacks had plenty of time to pass – the five touchdown passes and 485 yards in the air are proof – but the Tigers weren’t able to show much on the ground, relatively speaking.
“The running game can be a little bit better. We need to improve in finishing blocks,” Williams said.
Junior quarterback Rohan Davey, who completed all 11 of his passes, two for scores, admitted it would have been nice to know if LSU could run against a better opponent.
“We know we have the backs and the offensive line to do it, but I think coach (Jimbo) Fisher would have liked to have seen a little bit more from the running game,” Davey said. “But one of the reasons we didn’t is because we were subbing in so much. The coaching staff wanted to get guys in there and get them quality reps and see how they would perform in a game situation.”
Of course, WCU dared LSU to throw by packing eight players into the box, which didn’t leave Davey and Josh Booty much choice but throw.
“We went out there to compete hard and do what we were coached to do all summer, to compete for 60 minutes,” Williams said. “And that’s what I think the team did and I was really pleased to see that everyone worked hard, regardless of the score and regardless of the outcome.”
It wasn’t LSU’s fault that Western Carolina wasn’t good.
“No, but our mindset was to compete for 60 minutes and that’s what the team did,” Williams said.
However, he admitted the game wasn’t much of a barometer for his personal or the team’s improvement.
“Well, hopefully we can build on what we did this week and take it into the Houston game,” Williams said. “They came in here and embarrassed us last year, so we’re going to be ready for this game.”
Indeed, last year Houston, which nearly upset LSU in the 1996 season opener, came back in 1999 and knocked off the Tigers 20-7 in what turned out to be Gerry DiNardo’s last game as coach.
“We came into that game like we were going to win, but things didn’t work out that way,” Williams said. “They came in here and played tough and beat us pretty good.”
Accordingly, the players have targeted this Saturday for a long time.
“Everybody knows what happened last year,” Williams said. “And revenge is on a lot of guys’ minds. But that’s not going to take away from our preparation in getting ready to play these guys.”