BATON ROUGE — LSU’s 11th-ranked football team went back to work on Wednesday as the Tigers began their preparations for the Capital One Bowl with a two-hour workout indoors at the Charles McClendon Practice Facility.
The Tigers will face 12th-ranked Iowa at 1 p.m. EST on Jan. 1 in Orlando. The contest will mark LSU’s fourth straight January bowl game and will also represent the first meeting between the teams. LSU, winners of six straight, will bring a 9-2 overall mark into the contest, while the Hawkeyes, winners of seven in a row, are also 9-2.
“It was great getting back to work today,” LSU coach Nick Saban said following Wednesday’s practice. “We had a good workout. We are pleased with what the players have done up to this point. We certainly have a ways to go, but we’re looking forward to it.”
“We have eight practices here and we’re going to work very hard to get our team back in the best possible condition that we can be in to play a great game. We’re going to get as much work as we can get done here so that they can go home for four days for Christmas, and we can travel and have five practices at the bowl site. Hopefully, with Orlando being such a great place to go, have a little fun to go with that as well.”
Wednesday’s workout was the first of eight for the Tigers over the next seven days. The Tigers will practice twice on Thursday followed by single practices each day through next Tuesday. LSU will break for Christmas following practice on Dec. 21 before departing for Orlando on Christmas Day.
Saban said the Tigers used Wednesday’s practice, which was held with the players in shorts and shoulder pads, for work on fundamentals as well as just getting back to the basics of football.
“We just practiced ball,” Saban said. “We really tried to do a lot of fundamental work, almost like the first day of spring practice, almost like the first day of fall camp. We did it in shells and we did it inside only because I think it maybe more difficult to get focus and concentration relative to how cold it is and relative to where we’re going to play, weather not being maybe that big an issue.
“For the first few days we may use the indoor to try to get these guys back in the kind of condition that we’d like, which may be a little bit more difficult if it’s really cool outside when we practice. My plan would be if the field is okay to go ahead and practice outside tomorrow in the first practice and maybe go back inside tomorrow evening and see what happens with the weather from there. I think it’s supposed to warm up closer to the weekend.”
Against Iowa, the Tigers will face a team that won its last seven games after opening the season with a 2-2 mark. The Hawkeyes finished the year as co-champions of the Big Ten. The Hawkeyes are offensively by quarterback Drew Tate, who has thrown for 2,499 yards and 18 touchdowns.
“They’ve got a very resourceful quarterback who makes a lot of plays,” Saban said. “They play extremely well on defense, and this is a very challenging game for us.”