BATON ROUGE — LSU head coach Nick Saban spoke to the media on Monday afternoon about the upcoming Southeastern Conference game against 11th-ranked Tennessee. Listen to the archived broadcast now! Also, the LSU-Florida game on Oct. 7 will be televised, however, the time has yet to be decided.
Quotes from Nick Saban’s Press Conference:
“Even though we are disappointed by the results that we had in the last game. We are certainly not discouraged about where we are trying to head in the future. I think there were some good things in the game. We made some improvements on defense. I am pleased with the effort, the progress that we made, and also the execution on that side of the ball.”
“The defense did a great job of handling a difficult option offense that we hadn’t played against. We did a pretty good job of executing and being disciplined about how we wanted to go about the plan, and I thought we made some improvement in that area.”
“We had a few too many turnovers in the game. We got off the field on third downs a lot of times, but other than the one long drive that UAB’s offense had, and their one long play of 24 yards, our defense did a pretty decent job.”
“Special teams was definitely an advantage for us last game. We had 98 yards in punt returns. Domanick Davis did a very nice job on that and he probably had another 40 yards called back because of two penalties, which really affected field position. The field position on kickoff coverage was good, the turnover that we got when we punted the football helped us set up a score. So, we had a lot of good things in the special teams last week, and I think it helped us.”
“We just couldn’t put things together offensively. We had a lot of lack of execution and inconsistency on Saturday. It is very troubling to see a play which is run six or eight times a game, and the first three times that it is run, it is done fairly well and is blocked correctly. Then the next time you run it, the same guy who has been blocking the same guy on their team for three plays, doesn’t block that guy and the play doesn’t work. It is hard to figure out, because you know that the players know what they are supposed to do, and that they have done it before.”
“I think that it just comes down to believing and trusting in the system of what they are supposed to do, and believing and trusting in each other. Whether it is getting the blocking protection down or making the correct calls in the game, the players have to believe in each other. We have to continue to do a better job as coaches to help them do that, but we are very disappointed in how we put the ball on the ground twice and turned the ball over six times.”
“We didn’t score several times when we should have. Three times we were in the red zone and we came away with no points. Certainly those things are going to hurt a team from reaching its potential. We are going to keep working, trying to improve, and get the players to where we feel they have the best chances of winning.”
“We need to do what we need to do to bounce back this week. Our players had a good attitude about the corrections that have to be made. We just have to make the best progress that we can make.”
“Ryan Clark had an outstanding game on defense. He was our highest production point scorer last game, as well as being our Defensive Player of the Week. Toefield did a good job of running the ball, he was the Offensive Player of the Week. Davis and LeVar Johnson are the Co-Special Teams Players of the Week. Dominick for his return game and Johnson for making several big plays on kickoff coverage. He made a great tackle inside of the twenty-yard line, and he also recovered a big fumble for us.”
“Tennessee is an awfully good football team. I’d say that they are one of the top-dozen teams in the country when ranked relative to the way that their players play and the way that their coaches are coached. They have a good runner in Travis Henry. Even though they have a couple of young quarterbacks, they started playing a little better last week. They got some really good experience throwing the ball last week against ULM.”
“Their defense is very aggressive, they have great team speed. They sack the quarterback a lot and they are one of the most difficult teams to run against in the nation. This is definitely going to be a difficult challenge for us. We are going to have to show some maturity, execute, and show some poise in the heat of the battle. We are going to make the improvements that we need to compete in this game.”
BATON ROUGE — CBS has exercised a six-day option for selection of games to be televised on Saturday, Oct. 7, the Southeastern Conference announced on Monday.
The three games being held for selection are Auburn at Mississippi State, LSU at Florida and South Carolina at Kentucky. ESPN has already committed to televise the Tennessee at Georgia game at 6 p.m. CT.
Jefferson-Pilot will have the selection after CBS and ESPN2 will have the selection following Jefferson-Pilot of the three games being held.
The following games will be televised on Saturday, Oct. 7:
Jefferson-Pilot Sports:11:30 a.m CT, Auburn at Mississippi State; or LSU at Florida; or South Carolina at Kentucky
CBS Sports: 2:30 p.m. CT Auburn at Mississippi State; or LSU at Florida; or South Carolina at Kentucky
ESPN: 6 p.m. CT Tennessee at Georgia
ESPN2:? 6:30 p.m. CT Auburn at Mississippi State; or LSU at Florida; South Carolina at Kentucky