BATON ROUGE — LSU head football coach Nick Saban addressed members of the media at his weekly luncheon held Monday afternoon in the fifth floor conference room of the LSU Athletic Administration Building.
Opening Statement…
“I’d like to give thanks to a lot of people who have supported the program so passionately this year. That’s our fans and the student body who have stuck by this team through some relatively unexciting, uninteresting football at times, but they certainly have been supported. I think that their enthusiasm, especially in the last two games, certainly contributed to the outcome and the emotion that we were able to accomplish, that our team was able to accomplish in both regards. I certainly thank our fans and the student body and all who have supported us. It’s been very positive since we’ve been here over the five-year period. Certainly this year, as we struggled, that support was appreciated and certainly helped our team a young team not have to deal with some negatives.”
“It’s pretty obvious this week that we have a short week to make a lot of corrections from the last game in terms of things we did technically wrong, making some improvements on special teams as well a offensively and defensively, both of which we did some very good things in. Our ability to run the ball and control the line of scrimmage was a tremendous asset in the game for us. The way we played defense in the last five or six possessions — three and outs and two turnovers — was also something that was significant in our ability to be able to come back and win the game. Prior to and other than those things that we do have some things that we need to improve on, and we’ll be technical in our approach as we have been all year to try and get those things better.”
“Arkansas is a little bit of a different kind of preparation because of the kind of offense and defense that they run, but that’s something that we’re always faced with.
On LSU’s players of the week vs. Ole Miss…
“Outstanding performances last week and players of the week for us, obviously Alley Broussard is the SEC Offensive Player of the Week. He and Andrew Whitworth both were our players of the week internally on our team. Kyle Williams and Jessie Daniels were the defensive players. Joseph Addai and Justin Vincent both were outstanding on special teams.”
On LSU’s injury situation…
“We have a few guys nicked up for this game. (DB) Daniel Francis is probably out. He has a high ankle sprain — probably at least a couple week type thing. I’m assuming he’ll be out this game. (OL) Brian Johnson got a shoulder in the game. They’re going to do an MRI today, and that will probably determine his fate. He would probably be at least questionable for this game even if it was the best case scenario. Paris Hodges and Luke Sanders both have been out. Marcus Spears will miss practice today. He has a hip flexor, but we feel like he is probably probable for the game and will be able to practice in a day or two.”
On playing Arkansas…
“This game to me is a game in and of itself anytime we play Arkansas, I think, is how it’s got to be looked at. They obviously have a tradition of playing pretty well at home, and we have to take care of business in a special way when we go there and play.”
“They have some outstanding players, obviously. Matt Jones, who seems like he’s been playing there for a long long time to me and I haven’t even been here for that long, but it seems like he’s been playing a long time. He’s certainly a guy that makes their offense go. He makes plays in so many ways, whether it’s to run the option, throws the ball effectively, and they’ve done a very good job of improving their passing game this year, scrambles and makes plays, scrambles and makes throws and they have one of the best running games in the league primarily because of what they do in the option game as well as their ability to run the ball.”
“They haven’t been sacked very much because they’re difficult to pressure because of options and things they do in their offense. Even though they are 5-5, three of their losses have come to what were top-10 teams at the time they played them. And I think that history speaks for itself in terms of how they play at home.”
“I think their team plays extremely hard and competes really well. This is kind of a trademark that you see with coach Houston Nutt’s teams in how they go about doing things. That’s how they play on defense and that’s how they play on special teams.”
“This is a one-game season for us, obviously. Bigger than that, this is a game in and of itself relative to the circumstance that we are going into, and I think everybody has to have a mindset that it’s kind of a one-game season just like we look at a bowl game. We’ve got to get ourselves prepared to play probably our best football of the season on the road to be able to have success there.”