The LSU football team took few positives from Saturday’s 13-3 loss to Florida in Tiger Stadium.But the play of two LSU linebackers — junior Kelvin Sheppard and senior Perry Riley — was hard to miss.In what was arguably the biggest game of the season for the Tigers at this point, the two linebackers stepped up and displayed their best performances of the season against Florida’s high-powered spread offense.Sheppard and Riley finished the game with 13 and 12 tackles, respectively, which were season highs for both players.”Both guys played extremely well,” said LSU coach Les Miles. “Both of those linebackers are playing better and better each week.”Sheppard gave credit to the defensive line for his performance. “Rarely an offensive lineman came up on me and was able to release on me because guys like Drake Nevis, Al Woods and Charles Alexander keeping the interior off of me,” Sheppard said. Sheppard and Riley finished the 2008 season ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, on the team in total tackles with 64 and 60 tackles. The two linebackers rank No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in total tackles on the team this season with 44 and 42 tackles.Riley, who is only 18 tackles away from matching his total from last season, said he contributes his production to defensive coordinator John Chavis.”Last year I had a tendency to let the offensive linemen hold me a little longer than they should have been,” Riley said. “Coach Chavis does a good job of emphasizing head and hands and getting off blocks to go make a play.”Sheppard and Riley led a defense Saturday that held Florida’s offense to 327 total yards, well below the 526.25 yards per game that the Gators averaged entering the contest.”You see the numbers they’ve put up thus far,” Sheppard said. “For our defense to go out and do what we did, I think it’s very impressive and gives a lot of team confidence.”The defense also limited Florida to a season-low 193 rushing yards and 4 yards per rush on 48 rushing attempts one week after limiting Georgia to a season-low 45 rushing yards.Florida’s 13-point performance was well below the 45.5 points per game the Gators averaged before Saturday night’s matchup. The last time the Gators were held to 13 points or fewer was on Oct. 1, 2005, when Alabama beat Florida, 31-3.”There is not a better defense in the [Southeastern Conference] right now than LSU,” said Florida coach Urban Meyer. Despite the impressive defensive performance, Riley said the defense needed to get off the field more quickly against the Gators.”We stopped them from scoring a lot of times, but we kept our offense off of the field for too long,” Riley said. “We have to get off the field on third downs and cut out the penalties.”The LSU defense also failed to sack senior quarterback Tim Tebow just two weeks after he suffered his first career concussion. Tebow showed few effects from his injury as he threw the ball 16 times with only one interception and rushed the ball 17 times with no fumbles.”Tebow very rarely makes mistakes,” Sheppard said. “He tried not to give us opportunities to get the ball from him.”—-Contact Jarred LeBlanc at [email protected]