BATON ROUGE — LSU head coach Nick Saban addressed the media about his 11th-ranked Tigers’ blowout win over Arizona and the upcoming contest against Western Illinois. Archived video is available now for members of LSUsports.tv.
COMMENTS FROM LSU COACH NICK SABAN AT WEEKLY PRESS LUNCHEON
“First off I would like to say something to our fans and the people who support the program here. I heard a lot of people from Arizona talking about the fact that, other than playing Arizona State, they have never had that many people follow a team to play at Arizona, and it is not like we are adjoining states. It is quite a trip and quite an expense and the fans never left the game, they stayed for 60 minutes. I want all of our fans to know how much our players, our staff- myself included, really appreciate the support they give us. I think that it makes being a player at LSU something special and they can only do that because of the passion and interest that they have in the program. I just want everyone to know how much we appreciate it and I do not think it should go unnoticed.”
“After watching the film I was really pleased with the improvement that we made from the first game to the second game in terms of the execution, especially on offense. Taking advantage of the opening kickoff and making a 15-play drive, scoring the first six times we had the ball, and doing it with pretty good execution all the way around from a lot of people. I thought Matt (Mauck) played extremely well in the game and made good choices and decisions. Two things that we want to improve on is that we got hit a few times on the blitz and made a few mental errors in terms of side adjustments, throwing the ball, and a couple of protection things, but not nearly what we had the week before. We want to continue to work on our turnovers. We need to get more turnovers, and even though we had a few of them in the game and had the ball on the ground a few other times, that is something that we want to do a better job of- that is taking care of the ball.”
“Defensively I think we played hard in the game. We pressured the quarterback and affected him early. We played well on third down and got a big turnover early in the game that led to a score. I think the 17 points right off the bat kind of took the starch out of them a little bit and I think that was really important. I think special teams contributed to it and field position with the punt return, defense contributed to it, and the offense took advantage of all those circumstances and put points on the board. I think some of our young players got an opportunity to play and I think these guys are learning that these are real times and these are real things that happen. They made mistakes out there but they will learn from their mistakes. As a coach, it is real tough on the sidelines to see young players go out there who want to perform so well and have so much anxiety about performing well, and struggle to do it. The experience that they gained is going to help us long term. The mistakes that they made are certainly things that can be corrected and will help them improve as players. We feel like even though it is ugly at times it is a good experience and good development for our young players and for our team.”
“I am sure you got the information on the players of the week but we felt our two defensive ends probably played the best that they have played since they have been here, and they have both played a lot of good football here. They were very productive, that is Marquise Hill and Marcus Spears, and had outstanding games. They also had the two highest point totals on defense. They were effective. Matt Mauck, who was 10-11, did a great job of running the offense in terms of the ‘check with me’s,’ and all the things he did in the game. The execution was outstanding. Joseph Addai has been a two-game workhorse for us and also did an outstanding job. Gino Giambelluca did a great job on special teams and so did Corey Webster, so those two guys are the special teams players of the week. We had other players contribute and we probably had more guys compete in the game like we would like. I was overall pleased with the performance that we had, not that there is not a significant amount for us to improve as a team, and we do need to improve as a team. There are things that we need to do better. I talked about the turnover situation. We got some critical penalties late in the game that are unforgiving in terms of lack of discipline-type penalties that you would rather not have. I think defensively our perimeter defense let a couple of runs bounce out on us for big plays, so we need to keep better leverage on the ball and do a better job of tackling in the perimeter and continue to do the good things that we are doing. We will stop the run a little bit better if we do those things and that is something that we need to focus on.”
“All I can say about Western Illinois is that they have beaten three Division 1 opponents, three or four maybe, in the last couple of years. I know they have beaten Northern Illinois once and Northern Illinois beat Maryland when they were in the top 25. They have an outstanding quarterback and they have not given up a touchdown on defense this year. They have three All-Americans playing, one defensive lineman, one linebacker, and one guy in the secondary on defense. They have a good young runner and they play hard and they are very well-coached. Don Patterson was at Iowa when I was at Michigan State and I have a lot of respect for him and the job that he has done there. Just because a team is 1-AA does not mean that they do not have, especially when they can beat 1-A schools, football players that need to be respected and regarded and prepared for just as any other team. I think this is an opportunity for our team to show that they can play with consistency as well as make an improvement as a football team.”
“As far as injuries. Kirston Pittman, who was chopped away from the play which was a clip is always upsetting but I am sure there was no ill intention, is probably going to be out for this game. Hopefully we will get him back in a week. Randall Gay’s status has not changed. Maybe he will start doing a little work on the field in terms of moving around and conditioning. There is a possibility that Terrell McGill will be able to come back and resume activity this week. I do not think either of those two guys will play in the game. I would have to say that Randall Gay is not going to play in the game and Terrell McGill would still be very questionable for the game. They need to do another scan on him which they are doing today. They are doing a bone scan on Randall Gay so we can see what kind of progress these guys are making. Other than that I think we are fairly healthy.”