BATON ROUGE — After his second road victory in two weeks, LSU head coach Nick Saban addressed the media about his team’s upcoming game with the 5-1 Ole Miss Rebels on Saturday in Tiger Stadium. Also, the Southeastern Conference office announced that the LSU-Alabama game on Nov. 3 will kickoff at 2:30 p.m. on CBS.
The Ole Miss game, scheduled for 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 27, will be televised by ESPN2. The Alabama game was the eighth game of the 2001 season to be televised either by network or TigerVision.
QUOTES FROM NICK SABAN’S PRESS LUNCHEON:
“I have two really positive things to say. One, it’s really good to be home to play a game, because it seems like it’s been a long time. We’ve only had one home game since Sept. 8, and that wasn’t a very good one for us.”
“It’s good to be home and the second thing is that our last game was an outstanding performance for our team. The staff did a great job, the players did a great job and they competed well and played hard in the game.”
“Don’t let anybody kid you about the beginning of the game and the start of the third quarter in the game, both teams were playing very hard and physical. We had a lot of guys nicked up in the game, and I think that they (Mississippi State) did too, but I think that it was as well as we played for 60 minutes in a game all year.”
“I was very pleased and happy with the way that we were able to make big plays when we needed to. We were able to score when we needed to. We got turnovers that we were able to convert on and defensively we stopped them when we needed to in the red area and got some turnovers as well.”
“I was pleased after watching the film with how we competed in the game and how the players played for 60 minutes in the game.”
“I think that last week was a good week for us in terms of how we practiced and how we prepared for the game. The enthusiasm and the attitude on the team was very good and was something that we need to build on because of the challenge that we have this week.”
“Ole Miss has an outstanding team. Offensively, they are scoring 36 or 37 points a game and they do a really good job on offense when (Eli) Manning is in the game. They do what their players can do best and they keep themselves out of bad situations, they move the chains and they score a lot of points.”
“Defensively, they made a big improvement from last season. They play an odd scheme right now, which is odd meaning a three-man line, and they do a lot of stunting and so forth from it. It’s not so much like Mississippi State, but a little different type package. They seem to be doing a very good job with it, the players are playing well and they are one of the best pass defense teams in the country.”
“They are also very good on special teams and this is a team with a 5-1 record. The challenge to us is to see if we can beat a team that has a 5-1 record, a team with a winning record that has a good football team. That’s going to be the challenge for our players this week.”
“I certainly would like to congratulate Trev Faulk. He had an outstanding football game for us and he was one of our players of the week. He did a great job all week in being a leader on the team and he really competed well and held things together for us in the game and made a lot of big plays. We’re pleased with him.”
“We’ll probably have four or five guys who won’t practice today, but they will be ready for practice tomorrow. The one guy who is probably doubtful for the game is (offensive guard) Stephen Peterman, but we haven’t ruled him out yet. There is no one else at this point that we feel would not be able to play in the game at this time.”