BATON ROUGE — It’s been nearly two weeks since LSU last played a football game and according to head coach Nick Saban, it’s time for the Tigers to line up to face some one other than themselves.
LSU will get that chance on Saturday as the 17th-ranked Tigers host Troy University for Homecoming. Kickoff for the contest is set for 7 p.m. in Tiger Stadium. There are still a limited number of tickets remaining for what will be the first meeting between the teams in football.
The Tigers enter the contest with a 4-2 overall mark, having last played on Oct. 9 when LSU came back from a 14-0 first quarter deficit to beat Florida in Gainesville, 24-21. Troy, on the other hand, is 3-3 overall following last week’s 13-9 road loss to Arkansas State.
“I thought the bye week went very, very well for us,” Saban said following Wednesday’s workout. “I think we made a lot of improvements. You get to a point where you start feeling like it’s been a long time since you’ve played a game and I think we’re kind of getting to that point.
“Hopefully, we can stay focused and continue to get a lot of mental practice and mental reps on what we need to do to create an identity as a team, which I think is what we want to do.”
Against Troy, the Tigers will face a squad that has dropped three of its last four games after opening the season with a road win over Marshall followed by an upset of 17th-ranked Missouri on national television.
“We have all the respect in the world for Troy and what they’ve been able to accomplish and some of the good teams that they’ve beaten,” Saban said. “But at the same time, we want to build on creating an identity for this team, a team that can compete on a consistent basis, be a dominant team, get after it for 60 minutes in the game, beat the other team down, wear them out playing the ‘LSU way’.
“That’s what we haven’t been able to do. I thought we made strides toward that when we played Mississippi State. The next game we didn’t do it. I thought we did it at Florida, and we’ll see what happens in this game. To do that on a consistent basis is the key to having a good football team and finishing the year strong, and that’s what we want to start to build on.”
Saban said the Tigers head into the Troy contest in good shape health wise as All-America cornerback Corey Webster has practiced all week and is expected to see action on Saturday.
The Tigers will practice again on Thursday followed by a walk-thru in Tiger Stadium on Friday afternoon.
LSU Notebook
Saban Pulling For The Yankees: LSU coach Nick Saban started his post-practice meeting with the media on Wednesday telling the group that he’s pulling for the Yankees in game 7 of their series with the Red Sox.
“I like Joe Torre,” Saban said. “I think he’s got a lot of class and I think their team plays with a lot of class. They have a lot of clean-cut guys. They’re a team that competes well.
“You have to take your hat off to Boston for being down 3-0 and coming back in those games and winning two games in extra-innings. This is the only time that I watch baseball is during the playoffs. That other series (Cardinals-Astros) is a good series too.”