BATON ROUGE — LSU will get its first road test of the season on Saturday in the process open up Southeastern Conference action as the fourth-ranked Tigers travel to face 14th-ranked Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
The LSU-Auburn game will carry at 2:30 p.m. kickoff and will be televised to a national audience by CBS. The game can also be heard on the LSU Sports Network. Both teams are 2-0 overall. Auburn is 1-0 in SEC action after a 43-14 win over Mississippi State last week. LSU is coming off a 53-3 non-conference win over Arkansas State.
“This is an SEC game against a western division team,” LSU coach Nick Saban said. “Every SEC game is important, and this game is important because it’s an SEC game and it’s against a western division opponent. We need to play these games one game at a time, and we need to become a better football team with every experience that we have. That will be the focus of what we try to do in this game.”
Saturday’s contest will pit an LSU defense that has been stingy against the run for the last two years against one of the nation’s best running attacks in Auburn. The LSU Tigers, winners of six consecutive SEC games and 10 straight overall, are allowing only 69 yards rushing a contest, second-best in the SEC.
Auburn on the other hand features a pair of running backs in Carnell Williams and Ronnie Brown, who both average over 100 yards rushing a contest. Williams leads the Tigers with 112.5 yards rushing a contest, while Brown comes in at 101 yards per game.
“Auburn is an outstanding team,” Saban said earlier this week. “Offensively, they have been very dominant in their ability to run the ball with two great running backs in Carnell (Williams) and Ronnie Brown. Those guys are outstanding players, and they play with a lot of toughness. Their offensive line has done a great job of controlling the line of scrimmage in each of their two games so far this year.”
When Auburn is not running the football, the Tigers keep their opponent off-balance with the passing of fifth-year senior quarterback Jason Campbell, who has thrown for five touchdowns this year.
“I think the passing game that they’ve implemented is something that suits the quarterback, and he seems to feel a little more comfortable in what he’s been doing,” 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.”
The Tigers will counter the Auburn offensive attack with a veteran group on defense, led by seniors Marcus Spears, Corey Webster and Lionel Turner. As a unit, the Tigers have allowed only one 100-yard rusher over their last 16 games, that being by Cedric Cobbs of Arkansas last year.
Offensively, LSU will look to continue with its quarterback rotation of senior Marcus Randall and redshirt freshman JaMarcus Russell, while also relying on the play of running backs Justin Vincent and Joseph Addai.
“I was pleased with the way our quarterbacks both played (last week),” Saban said. “My view of the quarterback situation now is that both quarterbacks can be weapons for our team. I think the best advantage for our team is to use both quarterbacks in that regard. Both guys have ability to do certain things, and we’re going to try to plan it so both guys have an opportunity to do that.”
Randall enters the contest having completed 12 of 25 passes for 125 yards and one TD for LSU this year, while Russell has connected on 16 of 37 attempts for 296 yards and four scores.
On the ground, Vincent is averaging 75 yards per game after rushing for 102 yards and a pair of touchdowns in last week’s win over Arkansas State.
Despite having to keep a close eye on Hurricane Ivan for most of the week, LSU had a good week of preparation in leading up to Saturday’s contest.
“We worked pretty good this week,” Saban said. “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 did a pretty good job of trying to focus on what they need to do to get ready to play the game. 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.”
For the first time, Tiger fans can now hear Jim Hawthorne and the entire LSU Sports Network crew on the road. For this week’s game against Auburn, tune your FM radio to 93.5 FM or 94.3 FM. Anyone within one mile of the stadium should be able to pick up the broadcast signal.