BATON ROUGE — LSU’s 24th-ranked football team will face another stiff road challenge on Saturday as the Tigers travel to Gainesville to take on 12th-ranked Florida at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
The contest kickoffs off at 6:52 p.m. CT and will be televised to a national audience on ESPN. The game will be broadcast on the LSU Sports Network and can also be found on the Internet at www.LSUsports.net as well as on channel 143 on Sirius Satellite Radio.
LSU heads into the Florida game sporting a 3-2 overall mark, including a 1-2 Southeastern Conference record. The Tigers, losers of two straight road games, are coming off a 45-16 loss to third-ranked Georgia last week. The Tigers also dropped a 10-9 decision on the road to now sixth-ranked Auburn.
Florida, ranked No. 12 in the nation in both polls, heads into the LSU game coming off a 45-30 win over Arkansas last week. The Gators are 3-1 overall and 2-1 in conference action. Last year, Florida handed the Tigers their only loss, a 19-7 setback in October, before LSU reeled off eight straight wins on its way to the BCS National Title.
“Florida obviously has a good team, and I think they are playing pretty well right now,” LSU coach Nick Saban said. “It’s a challenge for us and an opportunity for us, again, to go prove what kind of team we can be, and I think that’s the approach we’re trying to take with it.”
With that in mind, the Tigers have had a good week of work on the practice field, despite two days of rain in Baton Rouge. LSU practiced indoors on Thursday and then held a walk-thru inside before departing for Gainesville on Friday afternoon.
“We’ve had a good week of practice,” Saban said. “I’ve been encouraged by the way the players have responded this week as we’ve tried to continue to develop some confidence, continuity and chemistry on both sides of the ball.
“I’ve liked the spirit and the enthusiasm of the team. I think there’s been a little bit better attention to detail, which I think is important when it comes to execution. Hopefully, it will show on the field when we play on Saturday.”
Against Florida, the Tigers will face a team that possesses two of the SEC’s top offensive threats in quarterback Chris Leak and running back Ciatrick Fason. Leak ranks first in the SEC in passing with 278 yards per game, while Fason is tops in the conference in rushing with 114.5 yards per game. Both players have accounted for 15 touchdowns this year, Leak has 10 passing and Fason five rushing.
“Their offense is really a quick strike offense,” Saban said. “They make a lot of big plays and they have a great deal of team speed. Offensively, they have a great combination of being able to run the football effectively and the quarterback, he can strike you down the field in a lot of different ways in the play action passes that go with the running game for big plays.”
The Tigers will counter the Florida offense with a defense that is allowing only 15 points per game and one that has given up just one rushing touchdown all season. In all, the Tigers, despite giving up over 400 yards of offense and 45 points last week to Georgia, are allowing only 275.4 yards of offense per game, and they are second in rush defense at 106 yards per contest.
Offensively, the Tigers will continue to try to establish a running game with its trio of backs in Alley Broussard, Justin Vincent and Joseph Addai. Vincent leads the Tigers with 225 yards and 2 TDs on the ground, while Broussard has 217 rushing yards and three scores.
LSU quarterbacks Marcus Randall and JaMarcus Russell have combined to connect on 75 of 139 passes for 1,076 yards and nine TDs. The favorite target for the LSU quarterbacks has been sophomore Dwayne Bowe, who has caught 22 passes for 362 yards and an SEC-leading five touchdowns. Fellow sophomore Craig Davis ranks second on the team with 18 receptions for 311 yards.
“We’re not going to give up on our players and what we believe in, because I do believe in our players,” Saban said. “I do believe that we can have a good team. I just think we have to continue to improve and mature. We’ve got to get better execution. And it’s not just the young guys. It’s the old guys that need to play better, it’s the young guys that need to mature more. We need to develop some leadership and team chemistry that’s going to help us accentuate this process so that we can be a good football team in the very near future.”