BATON ROUGE — LSU football head coach Nick Saban addressed the media Monday afternoon at his weekly media luncheon held at the LSU Athletics Department in the fifth floor conference room. Archived video is now available to all members of LSUsports.tv. A complete transcript of today’s press conference is now available.
COMMENTS FROM LSU COACH NICK SABAN AT MONDAY PRESS LUNCHEON
Opening statement
“I am pleased with the way that we came out of the bye week. We had a lot of good work and had the opportunity practice against a lot of things that we are going to see here over the next few weeks that are a little different than what we have seen so far this year. Obviously this is a new season for us and I know you will certainly ask me about “what was” and just so I can define it for you, rankings are “what was” and the game this week is “what is”, so when you ask me about that I am going to tell you that. The only thing that matters is the game this week. The rankings are “what was”. I mean tell me what we were ranked in the preseason, I don’t even know and I cannot even remember because that is “what was”. Who won the game last year is “what was”. “
“I know you guys have to deal with all that stuff but I just want you to know that from my perspective, “what is” is what counts, and “what is” is the game this week. I know I am going to disappoint a lot of people and all that stuff by kind of putting that stuff in perspective for me and for our team. I think it is important that our players can keep the focus on the game. Your head cannot be spinning about the wrong things. Obviously the most important thing for us to do is bring our “A” game every time we play. It is pretty obvious to me that watching Florida State, Miami, and Virginia Tech they didn’t necessarily bring their “A” game to the games that they played last week and they played against somebody that did, and they didn’t get the results that they wanted. That is no disrespect to their teams because I think they all have great football teams. I think it is an example of the difficulty in trying to keep consistency in your head with what you are trying to focus on. I think that is important. We need to do the work we need to do, the preparation that we need to have, to take care of the business that we need to take care of. Who plays the best will probably decide it. It is a pretty simple deal but it is not that easy to get it accomplished with a team of young players and the staff involved in the preparation of what we need to do week in and week out and stay focused on what you need to stay focused on.”
“Alabama is a very good team and are probably the best 4-6 team in the country. They played Oklahoma as good as they have been played against all year (Lost 20-13), and they lost a couple of games in overtime to some pretty good teams- Tennessee and Arkansas. They have the best runner in the league. (Shaud) Williams in the leading rusher in the SEC and Brodie (Croyle) is a very capable quarterback. They have been able to run the ball and have balance in their offense throughout the year. Their defense has a very talented front seven and they are the fourth-ranked defense in the SEC. They have good team speed so they are pretty good on special teams and I think this is a really good team that we are playing. I think anyone that thinks anything different from that is probably not looking at things in the correct perspective.”
“From an injury standpoint, Gino Giambelluca is someone whom we hope to get back later in the week and he still may be able to play on special teams. Devery (Henderson) is sick today so we do not know whether he will practice or not. He has a virus that has run through the team. (tight end) Demetri Robinson (groin) is still out. (Offensive guard) Nate Livings (sprained MCL) is a guys that is starting to progress and do more and more and maybe some time later this week he can return to practice but that is still questionable and he would be questionable for this game.”
On the difficulty of taking over the Alabama program that Crimson Tide head coach Mike Shula due to the circumstances surrounding the program
“I think what he (Mike Shula) had to do is much more difficult that I have experienced or had to do in coming in to some program in December as he did. He did not have the opportunity to have an off-season program or spring practice, or a summer conditioning program. You know it is difficult enough to buy into the system that you are playing but also to get them to psychologically go about things the way you want them to do it. I think Alabama played probably as well as they have all year last week (Beat Mississippi State 38-0) and maybe that is starting to come together for them but I do not know. I have a tremendous amount of appreciation for the job that has been done there this season because I think it was a difficult circumstance.”
On how this second open date was handled in comparison to the initial one prior to the 19-7 loss to Florida on Oct. 11
“I do not know if it was just a lack of focus, I think it may have been a little anxiety created by the success that we had and maybe not an ability to sustain the type of focus that you need from in intangible standpoint to always play your best football. Whether it was after a bye week or it wasn’t, I think that was probably more of the issue. The bye week may have contributed to it because the players had longer to try to maintain the intensity level that they had prior to that. This week what we tried to do was practice well and we did that. We got a lot out of practice and we tried to not, from a mental standpoint, tax the players too much or talk too much about what was going on. We tried to get the back in the emotional state that they need to be in for the routine that we have this week. I think what happened during the Florida week is we tried to maintain the intensity all the way through and practiced really well all during the bye week and then the practices kind of disintegrated leading up to the game. That may be an example of an inability to sustain relative to all the things that are spinning around you in order to play a good football game.”
On whether any anxiety has been noticed among the players due to the rapid climb in the rankings recently
“I hope not because that is certainly not what we are emphasizing with them. It goes back to that same old thing, that rankings are “what was” and the game is “what is”. The game is an opportunity for the players to play and that is the way that they should look at it. If you play a game in the street and you were good yesterday that does not mean that you are going to be good tomorrow. If you lost yesterday then you better not worry about that the next day. That is just street ball, but this is not a whole lot different and what is at stake is not what players should be thinking about. Players should prepare and focus for what they have to do to play good football for themselves, their teammates, their team, and all that. It is an opportunity and there is no anxiety in having opportunities. If you worry about failing and you hear the voice of fear saying ‘Wow, what is going to happen if we do not have success’, then you will probably not play very well and will have a lot of anxiety. You have a voice of reason over here and you have a voice of fear over here. The voice of reason says that we have a lot of opportunities and we have to go prepare for those opportunities like we always do, and that is bring our “A” game and play our best football. It is about as simple as that. If we approach it the other way then we have lots of problems.”