BATON ROUGE — With one eye on Hurricane Ivan, LSU continued to prepare for Saturday’s contest against 14th-ranked Auburn with a two-hour workout in windy conditions here Wednesday at the Charles McClendon Practice Facility.
LSU, Auburn and Southeastern Conference officials continue to monitor the storm, which is expected to make landfall sometime Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. As of Wednesday night, no changes had been made in the status of Saturday’s matchup between LSU and Auburn.
“We worked pretty good this week,” LSU coach Nick Saban said following Wednesday’s practice. “There have been a lot of distractions for the players, especially the guys from the southern part of the state and the New Orleans area. A lot of their families are displaced and moving and trying to find some place to stay or go or be or whatever. Hopefully that won’t be a problem for any of our families of our people that are here.
“But in spite of that, once we get on the field and in the meetings it seems like the players are doing a pretty good job of trying to focus on what they need to do to get ready to play the game. I haven’t been disappointed in what we’ve been trying to do.”
Saban said the Tigers look to have made progress on the offensive side of the football in practice this week. A week ago, the Tigers racked up 53 points and over 450 yards of offense against Arkansas State.
“It seems like we continue to make a little progress on offense,” Saban said. “It seems like we have a little more confidence in what we’re doing. We’re throwing the ball a little more effectively and we’re a little more physical on the line of scrimmage, which I think is really going to be important in this game.”
Saban added the Tiger defense has had a good week as well and that the Auburn offense will present a challenge, both with the running game and passing game, on Saturday.
“Defensively, we’ve got a lot of work to do on making all the adjustments to what they do on offense because they’re not one-dimensional,” Saban said. “They’ve got a lot of things that are difficult to defend in the passing game as well as a great ability to run the ball with the two great backs and the good offensive line.
“This has been an important week to focus on preparation because I think to be able to play effectively we’re going to have to play smart in this game and play with a lot of intensity and toughness and show our mettle relative to playing our first game on the road. There are a lot of questions to be answered in seeing where we’re at.”
Saban added that junior defensive back Mario Stevenson will be out of action indefinitely after suffering a fractured foot. Stevenson, who plays in LSU’s dime package on defense as well as special teams, will have to have pin placed in the foot.
The Tigers are scheduled to practice again on Thursday afternoon.