BATON ROUGE — Two days after his team’s first loss of the 2001 season, LSU head coach Nick addressed the media about Saturday’s game against the No. 2-ranked Florida Gators in his weekly press conference.
QUOTES FROM NICK SABAN’S WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE
“I’m not the type of person who likes to look at the silver lining. When you lose a game, there is a lot of time to be disappointed, there is a lot of time to be upset, but at the same time I have to say that I was very pleased with the way that we came out and played against Tennessee. We came out with the right attitude to be aggressive and to take it to them a little bit.
“We played hard and controlled the game for a long time, but we just couldn’t overcome the mistakes that we made in the third quarter. The main thing was how they (Tennessee) went 1-7 on third downs in the first half, and then they went 8-10 in the second half.
“They made enough big plays, enough third downs, and they scored enough points, but in the end I feel that we just ran out of time. Our players never gave up in the game and really competed well to get back into the game when they could have folded the tent, but that game is over and done with.
“Most of the time, when you have a problem it is due to a fundamental lack of execution in terms of what your technique is supposed to be, or it’s a mental error in terms of how you went about trying to do what you were supposed to do or you didn’t do the correct thing. It’s not really the play that you ran, the defense that you played, or what you did on a return.
“After you go for it on fourth and four, and you don’t make it, you wish that you would have punted. Today that is easy to decide, but before you know the result, it’s not that easy to make a decision. We’re going to try and do the best job that we can to get our players well prepared so that we can give them a chance to be successful on the field.
“I think that if we are going to continue to get better, the thing that we are going to need to do is to improve the fundamental execution in two areas. We will need to play better on the offensive line an we will need to have some better pass defense. That is obvious to you, it is obvious to me, it is obvious to Kristen (his daughter), Nicholas (his son), and Terry (his wife).
“This team that we play this week is as good of a team that anyone has ever seen in all of college football. They’ve scored 200 points in four games and have only given up 30. They have great skilled people. Probably a Heisman Trophy possibility at quarterback and they have a good offensive line. They are well coached and they make a lot of big plays.
“Jabar Gaffney is a great receiver. (Reche) Caldwell is a great receiver, so I’m going to ask you how we are going to stop them. The security is going to be tight around the stadium, so maybe we should not let them (Florida’s receivers) in.
“Our injury situation is minimal. I don’t think that we have anyone with a significant injury coming out of the game. Robert Davis is going to try and work his way back into the lineup. We don’t know if he can or can’t play, so later in the week, we’ll see how he responds and the kind of confidence he gained in his injury. With the injury he has, that’s the way it has to be and if he re-injures it while trying to come back, then he will obviously not be ready for awhile.”