With no game to play last Saturday, LSU football coach Les Miles still had his mind on football.
Miles said during his weekly press luncheon Monday that he got to take in plenty of sports through the bye weekend before he and his No. 5 Tigers (7-1, 3-1 Southeastern Conference) turned their sights to the perennial biggest game of the season against No. 1 Alabama (8-0, 5-0 SEC).
He said he was saddened to see South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore suffer another season-ending knee injury after the junior hyperextended his right knee against Tennessee.
“That’s the difficulty about our sport,” Miles said. “The reality is, when you play this game, it’s a risk.”
He also watched every snap of the Crimson Tide’s 38-7 win against previously undefeated Mississippi State (7-1, 3-1 SEC) before his regular review of the tape the next day.
“It looked just as bad on the coach’s copy,” Miles said. “It looks like that Alabama team’s pretty good.”
Miles mentioned the Crimson Tide’s efficiency passing and kicking the ball. Junior Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron has yet to throw an interception this season, while senior kicker Jeremy Shelley has gone nine-for-nine on field goals shorter than 40 yards. On long attempts, junior Cade Foster is four-for-eight.
LSU capitalized on Alabama’s mistakes in the passing and kicking games in their last regular-season matchup.
Alabama missed four field goals, all from farther than 40 yards, in a game that was eventually decided by three points in overtime, and the momentum was swung in the Tigers’ favor when junior safety Eric Reid picked the Tide off on the Tigers’ 1-yard line early in the fourth quarter.
“You’ve got to force [McCarron] to make a mistake, and if you can get him to make a mistake, you’ve got to capitalize,” Reid said. “If you can get a turnover, you have to score points because you’re not going to beat them if you force them to turn the ball over and don’t come up with anything.”
Another difference in this season’s game will be LSU’s lack of an option quarterback, which proved an advantage in “The Game of the Century.” Miles said the Tigers will have to stretch Alabama with junior quarterback Zach Mettenberger and their own passing game in absence of a mobile signal-caller.
“What we’re going to do is tend to stretch them vertically and horizontally with the passing game and let them be responsible for their assignments that way rather than the option game,” Miles said.
Miles said he was confident in his signal-caller, who has thrown for 1.419 yards and seven touchdowns while completing 56.6 percent of his pass attempts.
The Tigers took some shots downfield in their last game against Texas A&M and have connected on nine passing plays of 30 or more yards this season, but only two came against SEC opponents.
“When the opportunity shows for us to have a big play in the passing game, I’ve got to be able to hit the guy who’s open,” Mettenberger said. “We have to have as few mistakes as possible.”
Miles said he anticipates the return of junior offensive guard Josh Williford, who suffered a concussion against Florida, and junior linebacker Luke Muncie, who has been battling a stomach ailment since fall camp.
Though he said he believes freshman guard Trai Turner, Williford’s replacement, deserves to keep his starting spot, senior offensive lineman Josh Dworaczyk will welcome Williford back with open arms.
“I think having Williford back would definitely be a huge asset to our offensive line,” Dworaczyk said. “We’re still depleted. We need as many people as we can get.”
College football wasn’t the only amateur sport Miles watched this weekend, as he also got to watch his children play.
He found his high school-aged son, Manny Miles of University Laboratory School, playing “a quality opponent on the road,” Friday in a 50-0 trouncing of Northeast. His youngest child, 9-year-old Macy Grace, had a soccer game that was “desperately played … with great competition.” His younger son Ben, an eighth-grader, played a “rock-’em-sock-’em” football game as well.
“A wonderful time had by all,” Miles said of the weekend spent with family.
