BATON ROUGE — Before his first Homecoming game at LSU, head coach Nick Saban spoke to the media about Saturday’s Auburn game as well as this week’s contest with Alabama-Birmingham in his weekly press conference on Monday morning.
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“After looking over the film of the game against Auburn, they definitely have some weapons on offense. They made some plays in the game and they played better than we played.”
“At the same time I was very pleased with the effort that our players competed with in the game. I don’t think that they quit at the end of the game.”
“It was our inability to focus on doing and executing what we needed to do consistently that made the difference in the game. When you play a good football team they take advantage of the little errors that you make.”
“That’s what we’re going to have to focus on to become a better team. We’ve played hard and have established the fact that we can play hard. Now we have to play smarter for longer, and get better execution on both sides of the ball as well as on special teams.”
“We made some plays on offense, and we probably ran the ball better against Auburn. We made some big plays. There were just too many little leaks that hurt us from playing with the kind of consistency that we need to have to be good all the time.”
“Whether we don’t make a short yardage play, miss a pass protection, or we drop a pass. We just need to play with a little more consistency.”
“Defensively we played well at times. We probably gave up a few too many big plays. Most of it was centered around some sort of perimeter play. Either not getting the proper run support, or needing to play the ball better when it is thrown down the field. We needed to make some plays but we didn’t make them.”
“We made some obvious mistakes like when we left a guy wide open for a touchdown. We should never want to let that happen again.”
“Special teams wise, the turning point in the game was when they returned the kickoff for a touchdown. We didn’t fundamentally execute on reading the return. We didn’t fight off our blocks the right way, and they had a great player running the ball and he made the play.”
“We need to get better in all those areas. We had a couple of players that played very good in the game. Kenderick Allen played probably the best game that I have seen since I have been here. He played more plays and made more plays. He was the defensive player of the game this week for our team.”
“Josh Reed had an outstanding game, and he was obviously the offensive player of the game, and Tommy Banks, who silently does a good job for us week in and week out, was our special teams player of the game. He always does a good job and doesn’t get any notoriety for it. He did a great job on the punt team, because he’s the quarterback for that group.”
“From an injury standpoint, Abram Booty may be questionable for this game. He pulled his quad in last week’s Wednesday practice, and that is why he didn’t play against Auburn. He is day-to-day, and hopefully he will be back for this week’s game, but it is uncertain at this time.”
“I think that we have a lot to prove in the game coming up. UAB has a lot of experienced players coming back on their team. The type of team that they are, especially on offense, the way they do everything from run the wishbone to having an empty backfield. They change from play to play.”
“It will definitely be a different adaptation for our defense to deal with this week. Watson Brown is a good offensive coach. He presents a lot of problems and we’re going to have to be on top of our preparation game if we are to be able to go in and execute and do the things that we need to do to win.”
“They have a real good running back. Their quarterback has a lot of experience. He can run the ball and throw it equally as well. Defensively they’ve got some good looking guys on their team. They gave Kansas as much as they wanted last week. I think that is an indication of the quality of football team that we are playing this week.”
“We need to be ready to play, and we have to be prepared to play against this team this week. We have to prove that we can bounce back from a tough loss, have a great week of preparation this week, eliminate some of the errors, and improve as a team. We need to play with the type of intangibles that we need to play with to have success.”