BATON ROUGE — Defending Southeastern Conference Champion LSU opens its spring practice on Saturday with the first of 15 sessions at the LSU Practice Facility.
LSU practices at 1 p.m. on Saturday, followed by 3 p.m. workouts next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. LSU will take off the following week for Spring Break and will resume workouts on Monday, April 8.
The Tigers return 12 starters, six on both sides of the ball, along with their punter and placekicker off of last year’s 10-3 squad. LSU closed last season by winning six straight games, culminating with wins over second-ranked Tennessee in the SEC Championship game and a 47-34 victory over seventh-ranked Illinois in the Sugar Bowl.
“We had a really good offseason with our players,” LSU coach Nick Saban said. “I think we made a lot of gains with a lot of players in terms of strength and conditioning. It seems like we have more players more knowledgeable about the way we like to do things. They understand what the standard is of what they would like to accomplish here. The whole goal of this team is to be a nationally respected, recognized and consistent winner.
That means our standards of excellence have to go up. Last year’s accomplishments are next year’s expectations.”
“We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of positions to fill and some big holes to fill from production players that are no longer with us. The attitude with the team has been exceptionally good. This is the best offseason we’ve had in terms of the attitude and conditioning of the players. It’s a position we like for them to have going into to spring.”
The Tigers will wrap up spring practice on Saturday, April 27 at 1 p.m. with the annual Spring Game in Tiger Stadium. LSU opens its 2002 football schedule on Sunday, Sept. 1 against nationally-ranked Virginia Tech in Blackburg, Va.
Coach Saban Quotes
Spring Football
3/22/02
“We had a really good offseason with our players. I think we made a lot of gains with a lot of players in terms of strength and conditioning. It seems like we have more players more knowledgeable about the way we like to do things. They understand what the standard is of what they would like to accomplish here. The whole goal of this team is to be a nationally respected, recognized and consistent winner. That means our standards of excellence have to go up. Last year’s accomplishments are next year’s expectations.”
“We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of positions to fill and some big holes to fill from production players that are no longer with us. The attitude with the team has been exceptionally good. This is the best offseason we’ve had in terms of the attitude and conditioning of the players. It’s a position we like for them to have going into to spring.”
“Heading into the spring we all have questions in our mind. I’m sure the questions you have are the same questions that we have. The unknowns are what create the insecurities that I call the “bad side of the moon”. But that’s why we have spring practice and fall camp. So we can let these questions answer themselves.
“Offensively everyone is going to say well “How do you replace Rohan Davey and Josh Reed and the production they had?” That’s a good question. We have to develop consistency at the quarterback position. Whether its Matt Mauck’s continued development or Marcus Randall’s development or Rick Clausen’s development at quarterback. That’s going to be pivotal to the overall production of our offense.”
“I think we also have a lot of guys who haven’t had large roles for us in the past but have a lot of ability. I think we need to find roles for them now. This would include guys like Bennie Brazell, Shyrone Carey and Devery Henderson and and other guys like that. We’re going to use Henderson and Carey at both receiver and running back. Joseph Addai and Ryan Gilbert will be two young running backs that will be right there with Domanick Davis this spring. Toefield will be out there with us. His rehab is going extremely well. He is way ahead of schedule and is already running. But he will not participate in spring drills.”
“Eric Edwards is a guy who has done well when he played. But because we had two pretty good tight ends around here the last two years he probably hasn’t been able to play as much as he deserves to play. He is the heir apparent to the tight end position now. David Jones has shown a lot of position and he will get a look.”
“On the offensive line we have a lot more athleticism but we still aren’t deep as far as numbers go. Rob Sale, who started for us before will slide into the lineup and Brad Smalling has played quite a bit. We have enough experience to move forward at that position.”
“Michael Clayton right now has a low back problem that has kinda impeded his progress in his offseason program. He will be day-to-day in the spring. This is not a problem that we haven’t seen before. We don’t have any long-term concerns right now. But he is not ready to go for the first day of spring.”
“On the defensive side, our number one objective is to stop giving up so many big plays. We gave up way too many big plays last year. Last year the team that had the highest ration of turnovers and big plays in their favor won the most big plays. We played some good games defensively last year, but our Achilles Heal was big plays. It’s not just a secondary issue, we need to pressure the quarterback.”
“Obviously we need to replace our Mike (Middle) linebacker. We will give Jason Ledoux and Lionel Turner the first looks at that position. Some might ask, would you ever consider moving Bradie James there? We might. Our goal will be to get the best three linebackers on the field whoever they are in whatever combination is necessary.”
“I have total confidence in the academic credibility and the people in this institution. We have raised 14 million dollars to improve the quality of the academic support center and program. We have hired one of the most respected academic center directors in the country so that our players can have the best chance for academic success. We have an investigation going on so we can fix the problems and that’s why we started it to fix the problems. Everything we have done is to ensure that we have to best possible academic success for our student-athletes. We have improved our graduation rate tremendously and we did it the right way. We will continue to do it the right way.”
2002 LSU Football — Spring Practice Schedule
Date Time Post-Practice Interviews
Sat., March 23 1 p.m. Coach Saban
Mon., March 25 3 p.m. Players
Tues., March 26 3 p.m. Players
Thurs., March 28 3 p.m. Coach Saban
Mon., April 8 3 p.m. Players
Wed., April 10 3 p.m. Coach Saban and Players
Fri., April 12 3 p.m. None
Sat., April 13 TBA Coach Saban
Mon., April 15 3 p.m. Players
Wed., April 17 3 p.m. Coach Saban and Players
Fri., April 19 3 p.m. None
Sat., April 20 TBA Coach Saban
Tues., April 23 3 p.m. Players
Thurs., April 25 3 p.m. Coach Saban
Sat., April 27 1 p.m. Coach Saban and Players