BATON ROUGE — A day after LSU’s 7-3 loss to third-ranked Auburn, LSU coach Les Miles met with members of the media to discuss the contest. The following are the comments Miles made to the media:
Opening Statement
“Our young guys on defense are just playing really aggressive football. They are complementing some of the veterans. I thought Glenn Dorsey, Tyson Jackson, Ricky Jean-Francois, Chase Pittman all did a great job up front. (Darry) Beckwith had another big day. (Jonathan) Zenon got a little nicked and came out of the game early. I thought the secondary played pretty well, minus an interference call that was a legitimate call.
“On special teams, they only had one kickoff and we took a nationally ranked kickoff return team and just broke them, putting them at the 13-yard line to start the game. It really set the tempo of the game.
“Offensively, we have to run the football better. In looking at the film, it was about one guy (breaking down) on every play. If one guy gets it fixed, we probably rush the ball for plenty of yards. We have to improve there, but we can throw it. We had good protection for most of the day. We have good playmakers at perimeter positions. I thought the young freshman tight end (Richard Dickson) played well considering it was his first (road) game. I expect him to get nothing but better.”
“There was a tremendous ballgame played. Both teams fought like heck. Auburn won. Deservedly, they got victory. Our football team played well. They deserve to have been treated very fairly, and I don’t know if that quite happened. We have a call into the (SEC) head of officials (Rogers Redding). Certainly, I will find out what the logistics of those calls were. It involved four possessions that were on their end of the field. There are no excuses. They won, but I need to get a better understanding of the rules.”
On the running game …
“One thing about running the football is everybody has to do their job. When one guy sputters and it is a different guy a number of times, we have to focus on it and get it corrected so we can run the football. The plays being run were the right plays. I think we are close to being a really balanced offense. I think we are close to achieving both balance in the running game and the passing game. A guy here and a guy there make a mistake, then it looks like you can’t run the football. We have to give a little bit more attention or focus. As a staff, as a team, I think we are fine.”
On QB JaMarcus Russell …
“He operated the team very well. He did what we asked him to do. There are a couple of things we would like to have back. He’s very confident. He looks forward those positions where you have to make a play. He enjoys it. I think that’s a strength of his. He’s more mature, more well-rounded. The greatest strength JaMarcus Russell has is that he looks forward to being in a position where people are counting on him to make a play.”
On the final play of the game …
“For him (Russell) to hold onto that ball and throw it up would have been a jump ball in the endzone. The throw that he makes is a completion that maybe if he throws it a little harder and gets it in the hands of (Craig) Buster (Davis) and he can possibly make a move, that may have a resulted in a different outcome. It is really difficult for us to argue with the throw. Certainly, he was throwing it to an open guy. If he gets it to him a little earlier, maybe he makes the guy miss and scores. There were two other throws that had guys running in the endzone, but they were all manned and covered pretty effectively. You had guys underneath coming open, especially Buster, who is going to be open with a clean run at the goal line. It was good defense and just a nice tackle.”