BATON ROUGE — LSU head coach Les Miles spoke to the media about his team’s 56-3 victory over North Texas as well as the Tigers’ homecoming match-up against Appalachian State on Saturday. Tickets are still available online for the homecoming game.
Members of the Geaux Zone can use the links above to either watch or listen to the archived steaming media from today’s press conference.
COMMENTS FROM LSU COACH LES MILES AT HIS WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE
Opening statement…
“I reviewed the film and it was kind of how we expected it. I felt like the defense played well at times, and I like the fact that they blocked that field goal and had a goal-line stand. Those backs from North Texas were better than I thought, and I think they challenged our guys to tackle them and for the most part they responded. I enjoyed the fact that we got as many back-ups in for the amount of time we did. Down the road that will certainly help us.
On Appalachian State…
“If you look at Appalachian State, they’re a 6-2 team who has lost two games on the road, one to Kansas and one to Furman. Their quarterback is a tremendously talented guy who I think is the all-time passer at Appalachian State. He’s a very good athlete both in the run and the pass. He’ll be a great weapon for them. They have a great tailback. I like the wide receivers. They have skill on offense. They’ll run the same offense that Florida ran. They have the ability to get two backs in the backfield in the option. On defense they have two defensive ends who are mobile guys. They play with a veteran defense. They line up and scheme a little differently every week, but they play very effective and we expect it to be a competitive game and for us to play well and take advantage of it.”
On getting back-ups playing time versus North Texas…
“I think we played most of them. The only guys we didn’t get on the field that we would have like to get on the field were some of the special teams guys. We got pretty much everybody some playing time that we wanted to see and felt good about the number of reps they got on the field.”
On injury status…
“(Offensive guard) Brett Helms may not be with us (for this season). He is out indefinitely, and we’ll miss him. I think we’re probably coming back to health with (offensive tackle) Peter Dyakowski and (linebacker) E.J. Kuale. I think our quarterback’s wrist (JaMarcus Russell) is pretty much back to normal. I think there are some other nicks, but really nothing significant.”
On playing a I-AA opponent…
“I think this I-AA opponent is a good football team. In 1999, they went down to Auburn and played Auburn off their feet and almost beat them. Auburn came from behind in the closing minutes of the game to win the game. But I think this is a very capable football team, and they will give us challenges. We’ll have to improve this week for a number of reasons. Certainly we have to beat our opponent and then (we have to improve) for the rest of the season.”
On Matt Flynn’s performance against North Texas…
“I think we all have confidence in Matt Flynn and we all anticipate he would play that well. We just needed to get him on the field and see it. I think we’ll use Matt as best as we can, but I don’t know that we’ll change his priority in number of snaps. But we have great confidence in him and look forward to sending him into games.”
On Buster Davis’ play versus North Texas…
“He made several nice receptions and tried to get loose. It seemed like he was the guy who got our goal-line unit ready. I think he had three catches that ended up inside the 5-yard line, so basically after we had a reception to Buster we got our goal-line unit out on the field. It sure is nice to have him back and healthy. He’s a very talented guy and certainly we’ll need him into the stretch.”
LSU Player Quotes — Appalachian State Week
On the offense improving…
“I think it’s getting better. I think we’re making strides. We still need to run the ball more effectively and get a hat on a hat. I think that’s as much of a blocking issue as it is that we have to get our assignments down. That’s why these games like this are good because we get to go out there and execute against a team. Hopefully we can fine tune the offense and keep moving.”
On the offensive line beginning to gel…
“We have to an extent. We’ve had a lot of injuries and that has hurt. We’ve been having guys in and out of lineup and are never really sure who’s ready to go injury wise. Brett Helms comes in there. He’s a guy we thought we start for us and he gets hurt again. We finally are getting it down and executing more. We need to fine tune a little more and really get moving.”
On winning the National Scholar Athlete Award…
“I was just really excited about that. I was happy to be able to represent this school, this team and my family by winning such a prestigious award. I am especially grateful to the people like (Michael) Bonnette who nominated me for the award and publicized me to get it.”
On getting some rest during the last game…
“It was definitely needed. We really needed the rest. It was good to get that. If we would have had a game where we needed to we could have done that too. With players like Joe (Addai) it gave him a chance to rest his injury and get ready for the rest of the season. Some people might say that you will get out of shape, but we do enough around here that you can afford to take half a game off every now and then.”
One getting to rest against Appalachian State…
“It would be nice, but you have to give teams the respect they deserve and you never really know what’s going to happen. We’re just going to prepare this week and go out there and play and hopefully good things will happen.”
On getting a lot of playing time against North Texas…
“It’s just one of those things where as a competitor you want to be on the field where you know you can make plays. When you’re called upon as a player you have to be ready and use the opportunity. I just wanted to step up in this game.
WR Dwayne Bowe
On the receiving corps not dropping as many balls…
“It’s just more focus and doing extra work after practice. We catch balls on the jugs machine and practice looking them in. Our receiving coach makes us catch 50 in a row and if you drop one you have to start over again.”
On preparing for Appalachian State…
“Every week we look over the game, break down film and practice for the next team. We practice for the next team just like we’re playing Alabama, Georgia or the SEC Championship Game. We look at every game as a big game.”
FS Laron Landry
On preparation for Appalachian State…
“It’s really no different. We can’t look down on them because it is a non-conference game. We still have to go out there and play hard and give 100% effort. There’s really no difference in an SEC and a non-conference game.”
On what needs to be done to improve the defensive front…
“It’s just that our tackling hasn’t been that good, and then just communication. Basically if we’re all on the same page and don’t give up any busts. We missed a lot of tackles and some penalties really set us back. Other than that our defensive front has been pretty strong and that takes a lot of stress off the secondary.”
On having a strong defensive front helping the secondary…
“It gives us an opportunity to get interceptions and make plays on the ball, and put the quarterback in a bind so its is a really important thing.”
On last game and this coming weekend…
“Well, last week we played alright, held them down, but I don’t think the intensity was there that we should have played with. They say it’s a lesser opponent but I think anytime a different color jersey comes into your stadium and wants to play you and wants to win I think you have to come out and make them play to your level. I think we played well at times and then at times we stooped down and let them play with us when we shouldn’t have. This week hopefully we can get our intensity up and make them match it every time the ball turns over out there on Saturday.”
On it being tough to play two non-conference games in a row…
“Yeah, it’s tough. I think it’s tougher coming off of two hard weeks and then playing in a week like last week rather than going into a tough one like we will next week. I think it’s harder coming off of two tough games, with how sky high the intensity was from the fan standpoint, from everybody’s standpoint, so it is tough, but if we want to be a championship caliber football team we have to come out with our best intensity every time we play. We only get to play one time a week and, like I said, a team with a different color jersey comes on they want to come in and they want to win and we have to make sure they don’t have an opportunity to do that, although it is hard.”
On being able to get a sense of what intensity will be like before the game…
“I think you can when we come out for warm-ups. You see how everybody is reacting to a lot of things, to the crowd, to what we’re running in pre-game and how intense we are when we go through one-on-one blocks and pass rush and 9 on 7. I felt like that was good and I felt like coming out our intensity was good I think at certain points it just kind of dipped and then it would come back up.”