BATON ROUGE — The LSU Tigers began their final week of spring football with a two and a half hour workout at the LSU practice fields Tuesday afternoon.
New LSU head coach Nick Saban was excited about the Tigers’ performance in the practice, LSU’s 13th workout of the allowed 15 practice days, but cited the need to improve consistency.
“The team has taken the bull by the horns and has begun taking responsibility for the job they have to do,” Saban said. “We didn’t get continuity in the execution that we would have liked, but I was really pleased with the effort and the toughness that the defense has started to play with. I think the execution is not where it needs to be. I think there are too many mental errors on both sides of the ball. I think that’s just players going through the process of learning and understanding.”
Saban said he is satisfied with the team’s acceptance of the applications being taught by the new Tiger coaching staff.
“I think they are seeing more and more the importance of how important it is to do the right things the right way,” Saban said. “They have to be responsible for what they are supposed to do, how they are supposed to do it and being able to do the minor things to get it done. Part of that is discipline and part of it is understanding.”
Saban discussed the Tiger secondary, the unit with which he has most closely worked during spring practice.
“I think they have tried to do what we want them to do, I think they have made improvements over the spring,” Saban said. “I think they are playing with a little more confidence and hopefully that will reflect on the field next year. It’s not always how you play, it’s the consistency in which you play with and how you can handle the adversity of getting beat. That’s a position that when you get beat everyone knows you get beat just like when you strike out in baseball.”
He also commented Tuesday on the play of Tiger quarterbacks Josh Booty and Craig Nall and the LSU receiving corps.
“I thought both quarterbacks did well today,” Saban said. “A lot of the stuff we did today was play-action. When you get the defense distorted, play-action passes are very difficult to defend. I think the reads are easier for quarterbacks on play-action because people that are open are really open because the defenses are distorted. I think that was a main reason why the quarterbacks looked sharper today. I thought we caught the ball well today. We had some guys make some big play catches which we need and I think both of those things develop confidence in the players.”
The Tigers will practice one more time, on Thursday, before playing in the annual LSU Spring Game on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. in Tiger Stadium.
“We’ll be in shells (helmet and shoulder pads) on Thursday,” Saban said. “We’ll spend part of the practice probably trying to take some part of something that we didn’t get accomplished sometime this spring. There are always things that you want to give the players an idea about. For an example, we haven’t put in any unbalanced rules. We may face that a couple of times next season. So you want the players to play them on principles but they have to understand the principle. Those types of things are the things that we need to do now that we haven’t had the opportunity to do.”