BATON ROUGE — Leading up to the season-opening contest on Saturday, LSU head coach Nick Saban addressed the media during his weekly press luncheon at the LSU Athletics Administration Building on Monday afternoon. The transcript from the press conference and archived video for members of LSUsports.tv are available now.
COMMENTS FROM LSU COACH NICK SABAN AT HIS WEEKLY PRESS LUNCHEON
“I think that you have been given the feel that from most of the players that they are tired of practicing against one another and are ready to play somebody, and I think it is probably about time for that. This is the probably the hottest, I do not know how you verify that, but the wet bulb has been setting records about every afternoon. This is the best-conditioned team that we had coming into camp and we have probably had fewer problems because of the conditioning level. It has been difficult at times to work like we would like to work relative to every time that we practice in the morning or afternoon we have a wet bulb approaching 90 degrees. They used to say you are supposed to bring the cows in when it is 82, so I do not think we should be out there. Our team has persevered well, it has made it difficult, but I have been very pleased with the work we have gotten done and the progress we have made as a team and where we are right now.”
“The big question that everybody has and that you are going to ask me is what kind of football team do we really have. I am going to go back to the first issue that I ever brought up about what is the identity of this team going to be. I do not think it is about talent. I think it is about character and competitive attitude in terms of how you play. Also, how important it is to you and what you are willing to do to do your job, and all those types of things. The second question is what kind of chemistry are we going to have and what type of togetherness is the team going to have. These are the kinds of questions you ask yourself as a coach. I am with these guys everyday in meetings and on the field practicing with them, but some of these questions you never really found out until you find out under fire so to speak. I think togetherness is really important on any team no matter how much firepower you have or what kind of horsepower you have in your car. Everybody has a role and every part has a role. You can have a 427 Corvette engine and if I have the five lugnuts to the right wheel here then none of that does any good. It is all important, every player is important and the role of every player is important. The role of every player in practice is important and I think that all helps develop chemistry and togetherness and lets you function effectively as a team.”
“I think every individual player has to decide how important is it that this team has success. What are they willing to do to be responsible to do their job relative to what the team needs them to do. In this day and age in athletics as you well know, we could all point to some example where that is not exactly what happened in a team sport. I have been very pleased with the way that this team has come together and with what they have demonstrated to this point. Sometimes when you meet adversity and have to overcome it you do not have what you think you have, and that is about what we are ready to see. I talk about individuals and their responsibility all the time to make a team. I even talked about last year how I thought sometimes guys hid inside the team. I think an example I have used with the players that maybe you could understand is we spend, as a group, all kinds of time decorating the Christmas tree, putting lights on it or tinsel on it, everything you could put on it. You plug it in and all the lights come on and it looks beautiful. Except, when I was a kid and I remember this when I decorated the tree. When one bulb was out that whole string went out and they all flickered. So what does all the attention go to, well the flickering light. The beauty is no longer there and that is what you are trying to get from a football team or from any team sport, you are trying to get everybody functioning together so you do not have these flickering lights out there that bring attention to themselves and also detract from what the team is trying to accomplish. Hopefully our team will be able to do that.”
“I am going to spare you all the accolades about the other team that we are playing. We are not going to be underdogs in the game and everyone is going to expect us to win. I hope that our players have the proper respect for the people we are playing against because we certainly do as coaches, but I am going to spare you all that. The motivation for us in this game is that top rung of our pyramid of success, which says to be a champion. To me champions get motivated to play to a certain level all the time. That is the challenge to this team and to us, to see whether our team is ready to do that. It is human nature, I guess we are all kind of average in how we go about things, it is human nature to kind of respond to things when your back is against the wall or you are afraid of what is going to happen if you don’t, and that motivates a lot of us. Sometimes if you really are going to be good and you are going to be a champion then you can’t rely on that because the opponent or circumstance that you are playing in should not be the factor that creates the kind of competitive spirit and relentless attitude that you want to play the game with.”
“I guess it will be our challenge with this team for 12 games of the regular season to see if we have the capabilities of doing that. When you do that you cannot decide which games you want to play in and which ones you don’t. You need to compete at the same level all the time and that is certainly what we want to do with this football team this year.”
“This team (UL-Monroe) has 16 starters back and I think the most impressive thing about this team is the quarterback is a very good player. He threw for a lot of yards last year and a lot of touchdowns. He threw for 470 yards in one game. They have good skill players on offense and basically that is what they try to beat you with. They try to spread you out and use their skill players to make plays. They run a lot of tricks and gadget-type plays to make plays with and they do a very effective job with that. The second half of last season they scored lots of points and were much more effective offensively because of it. Defensively they have lots of experienced players playing and I am sure that they are very capable. I know you always worry more about how you are going to play on offense in the first game because you are creating the action and if you create it in a positive way you have a chance to be successful. The other team will do a lot of things that maybe you have not been able to prepare for so your players are going to have to be able to adjust and not have bad plays offensively to try to play with consistency.”
“Our injury status, I think you all know that we have three players that are out of the game. They are (offensive guard) Terrell McGill, (wide receiver) Amp Hill, and (wide receiver) Craig Davis. I think all the players, we feel even if they do not practice today, will be able to play. (Linebacker) Adrian Mayes has a strained quad but he has had that for a week or so in camp. After the last scrimmage it swelled up a little bit. He even went out the next day and did some stuff and it kind of got worse. We are working to try to get him back in shape and even though he may not practice today, the consensus is that he will able to practice on Tuesday and will be ready for the game. (defensive end) Melvin Oliver and (safety) Chad White will be out there in red shirts today but we feel both of those guys still have a good chance to play in the game.”