The Tigers are preparing for their final game of the regular season and Senior Night in Death Valley on Saturday.

Malone returns to practice

LSU senior offensive tackle K.J. Malone will return to practice this week after missing the past five weeks with a knee injury that affected his patella tendon. Malone is hopeful to play this week, but will have to wait until after this week’s practices to see how his knee feels.

Malone has been in the weight room working on his upper body strength while sidelined and said that Monday will be the first time he has run on it.

“We definitely missed him,” said quarterback Danny Etling. “He brought a lot of energy the last time we were home, and I’ll be happy to see him dressed out.”

Malone has seen much improvement from the offensive line the past few weeks and pointed out freshman Saahdiq Charles as a player he has been impressed with.

“I want to earn my way back if I can come back and play,” Malone said.  “Just trying to support Saahdiq and help him with whatever he needs.”

Seniors talk about final game emotions

LSU will be honoring at least 20 seniors on Saturday night against Texas A&M and coach Ed Orgeron talked about how much the class has meant to the Tiger program.

“Some of them are graduated and most of them are on track to graduate,”Orgeron said. “I’m proud of those guys. I’ve been with them for three years. They’ve meant a lot to this program. They chose LSU. Tremendous guys, tremendous leaders. And it will be a tremendous night for them.”

Among the pack is starting quarterback Danny Etling, who has spent the past year and a half in that role. Etling will have his whole family in attendance and is looking forward to walking into Death Valley one last time.

“We’ll definitely have a lot of energy and hype,” Etling said.  “It’s our last chance to play inside the stadium, and it’ll be cool to have my entire family down here for the first time all-together.”

Malone is another player being honored and made it his priority to be on the field for the game.

“I want to dress out and be out there with the guys,” Malone said.  “I just want to go out there and get the win on Saturday.”

Etling “paper cut” injury

A big question mark after the Tennessee game was the status of Etling’s hand which was wrapped in tape.

“He’s fine,” Orgeron said. “He’s all right. A little bruise on it. He’s good.”

Monday, Etling said jokingly the injury was from a “bad paper cut,” and that he would be fine moving forward.

“We thought we were going to lose the hand,” Etling said. “I was looking at some of the plays on the sideline and it slashed across. The training staff took a look at it and saved the hand.”

The senior quarterback is used to being banged up after having offseason back surgery that tightened up on him a few weeks ago.

“You get a lot of adrenaline for games,” Etling said. “You just keep playing and have as much fun as you can. Last Saturday was a real messy game so we had to do some things that will get you hit a little bit more.”

Etling talked Orgeron out of putting freshman quarterback Myles Brennan in the game late in the fourth after suffering the injury.

“I really wanted to finish that game,” Etling said. “I thought it would be to show that I was OK.”