by Chris Macaluso
LSUsports.net
LSU head coach Nick Saban is concerned.
Just one week after standing before the media and extolling the virtues of his aggressive football team in the wake of its 38-31 overtime upset of Tennessee, Saban had to explain to the same media, this week, why his team failed to play up to its potential in a 41-9 loss to Florida.
“I think the biggest thing was the execution,” Saban said. “I’m not sure that if we would have played a lot lesser team that we would have had a tremendous amount of success relative to how we performed in this game.”
The execution, or lack there of, Saban spoke of in last Saturday’s loss was responsible for the Tiger offense gaining nearly 100 fewer yards against Florida than it did against Tennessee the week before.
Saban also said his team dropped too many passes, committed too many costly penalties and failed to cover Florida wide receivers too many times throughout the course of the game all of which heavily contributed to the loss.
Adding to Saban’s woes is the ankle sprain to Tiger starting quarterback Rohan Davey, which may keep him sidelined for this week’s game against Kentucky. Third-string QB Craig Nall is also out after suffering a broken thumb in pre game warm-ups last Saturday. Saban said Davey’s status will be evaluated day-to-day but Nall is out for at least the next four weeks.
“We were unable to maintain our intensity and build on last week’s (Tennessee) success,” Saban said. “I think that this is a hurdle we have to overcome. We made mental error after mental error.”
This week’s hurdle for the Tigers is a Kentucky team that is struggling to get a conference win. The Wildcats (2-4, 0-3) are last in the league in total defense, surrendering 381 yards per game to its opponents.
The Kentucky offense is on the other end of the spectrum, ranked second in the SEC with 416 yards per game. Leading the way for Wildcat coach Hal Mumme’s wide open air attack is true-freshman quarterback Jared Lorenzen, who leads the SEC in passing yards per game with 317 and touchdowns per game with 12. He also leads the league with 11 interceptions.
Lorenzen has attempted 292 passes this year, 119 more than the second place passer in SEC, Vanderbilt’s Greg Zolman.
“Kentucky has a football team that can score some points,” Saban said. “They throw the football. They do multiple things on offense and those are some of the things that we need to improve upon in our defense.”
If Saban’s team is able to make the adjustments he believes it needs to make to win Saturday’s game, the Tigers will improve to 4-3 on the year and return to .500 in the SEC at 2-2 with four games left in the season.
“To me, this is a critical game, it’s a pivotal game,” Saban said. “We need to circle the wagons, rally the troops, get all the fans and all the supporters excited about because we are going to need to have that kind of electricity in this game.”