BATON ROUGE – The LSU Tigers went through their second scrimmage of the spring season on Saturday as the passing game came into focus in Tiger Stadium.
It was the twelfth practice of the spring season for new head coach Nick Saban and his Tigers. They will wrap up spring drills next Saturday with the annual LSU Spring Game in Tiger Stadium. Kickoff is set for 1:30 p.m.
Saban said he was satisfied with the scrimmage, despite the fact that a number of players were sidelined with injuries.
“I thought that, under the circumstances, we got a lot accomplished out there,” Saban said. “A couple of things we wanted to do differently today was work with four wide-outs but we have a few wide-outs hurt, so we didn’t get as good of a look as we would have liked. But we got part of the protection and teaching in this past week so we got a pretty good look at it today.”
The emphasis on the passing game for this scrimmage was evident as the Tigers ran 78 passing plays, compared to 32 a week ago. Josh Booty completed 18 of 43 passes for 315 yards with one interception and two touchdowns. Craig Nall completed 13 of 35 passes for 122 yards.
“I think we wanted to emphasize the passing game at certain parts of the scrimmage today and we made some big plays,” Saban said. “We probably need to do a better job consistency-wise in the passing game, but I thought we did some very good things. I didn’t think we were able to run the ball as well today which maybe is a sign that the defense played the run a little bit better. Anytime one side didn’t do something, that means that the other side did something a little bit better.”
There were two touchdowns on the day, both touchdown passes by Booty. The first went to walk-on Chad Muller for 44 yards and the other went to Freshman All-American Jerel Myers for 50 yards. Myers led all receivers in the scrimmage with nine catches for 138 yards. Other top receivers were Robert Royal with four catches for 54 yards while running back Domanick Davis, wide receiver LaVar Johnson and Muller had three catches each.
“I was pleased with the intensity we showed out there today,” Saban said. “I thought there was good tackling for the most part. I thought the first unit played well together for the most part. I think that attributed to their success most of the time. We did a good job in the red area. It’s important for us to do a good job in the red area.”
One of the highlights of the day was the performance of placekicker John Corbello who made six of nine field goal attempts. After missing his first attempt, he hit three in a row from 26, 31 and 47 yards. He missed from 55, then successfully converted three more from 29, 32 and 35. He missed his last try from 50 yards.
“Corbello had a good day kicking field goals, but we like to put it in the end zone at least two-thirds of the time,” Saban said. “You always want to get points, but you have to be able to score touchdowns. The receiving corps is a little banged up right now, and that probably hurt the continuity more than anything.”
Saban said the complexity of Saturday’s scrimmage led to more mistakes than the number committed in the first scrimmage last week.
“I thought last week in the first scrimmage that we had very few mistakes,” he said. “Today, the multiples of the situations was enhanced and we probably had more mistakes. A few more penalties and things like that, are a few things that we have to work on. All in all I was pleased with the effort in the scrimmage. I hope we can clean up some things in execution in a couple of practices that we have left and have a good spring game.”
Among those going down with injuries during the scrimmage were offensive linemen Trey Langley and Brad Smalling, and running back LaBrandon Toefield. Saban said that he is not concerned with who may not be available to play in next Saturday’s LSU Spring Game.
“The objective is not to have a quality spring game, the objective is to have a quality spring practice,” he said. “Regardless of who can play in the spring game, it will be an opportunity for those who can play to show what they can do and actually make some improvements in a game-like experience. That’s going to be a positive regardless of who can play. It’s going to be an opportunity for them to show what they can do whether they can do it or not.”
Running back Domanick Davis led all rushers with 16 carries for 51 yards while walk-on Elice Parker carried nine times for 16 yards. Toefield rushed four times for 10 yards before suffering a high ankle sprain.
Saban said that, all in all, he is pleased with spring practice through the first three weeks.
“There is a little bit of that cumulative effect that is affecting us right now, but I look at them as positives,” Saban said. “There are certain things that we have to get through. I think if you take the approach that we are going to get this exactly right before you get to the next thing then it will be a long time before we get to the next thing. We’re going to ‘whole-part-whole’ it. And if that makes us look not as crisp at times, then that’s fine. In the end we will be better off because we will have a better basic knowledge of information and a resource of knowledge to adjust from.”