At his weekly press conference before Florida, Miles had hoped to “square away” the problems with turnovers and penalties. With another week of mistakes, the only thing Miles has transformed is his demeanor. Despite a win against the Gators, Miles has begun to resemble former coach Nick Saban as he snapped at players and shrugged off members of the media.
Three penalties less and one fumble more – along with five total turnovers – is the transition LSU made from the week of Vanderbilt to this past weekend against Florida, much to the disappointment of coach Les Miles.
“I didn’t know he could get mad like that,” said receiver Dwayne Bowe. “Once we eliminate those penalties and turnovers, he’ll return to his normal self.”
Ball security drills and looking over film are some of the strides being made by coaches to eliminate the problems.
“We would like to get to a game where we play our style of football,” Miles said. “Basically things that we did last week [in practice], we want to continue to do this week on a grander scale. What we have to do here is put focus on it, make an adjustment and ask our players to do it better. They have character and they will.”
While Miles is getting more heated, the defense remains calm to the offense’s mishaps.
“I can’t say we’re aggravated, because if [the defense] is not playing good, our offense is playing good,” said junior strong safety Jesse Daniels. “The only thing we have to do is get on the same page. If our offense loses the ball, we have no choice but to go out there and play defense. We’re confident we are going to go out there and stop them. So if they give up the ball, we just have to go out there and get it back.”
Penalties have gone hand-in-hand with turnovers as a recurring theme week-in and week-out. Since the start of the season, LSU has committed 46 penalties and 11 fumbles. While penalties are treated in the same manner as turnovers during practice, Miles does not hold his team accountable for all flags thrown.
“I feel in fairness to our guys, not every flag that was thrown on Saturday was an essential,” Miles said. “I feel like there were a couple of instances I’m going to have to find out how the conference feels. I am not defending the fact that we were penalized on that at all. I promise you I am coaching against it. Our guys are making mistakes, and we’ve got to change that. That’s on me and on our staff and on our team.”
Senior offensive lineman Andrew Whitworth has seen a significant increase in penalties called on him during his past three seasons on the team.
“I think I’ve had eight penalties in the past two years,” Whitworth said. “I’ve got called for three penalties this year – I got called for five all of last year.”
Whitworth said he does not see a difference in himself through the years, but rather, the officials are more strict at play calling this season.
“I think the officials are a lot tighter and I’m not saying it in a bad way,” Whitworth said. “It’s just this season, especially if you look all across the board. It seems like this has been a very heavily penalized year.”
Bowe said the team looked at film Monday to start preparing for not only Auburn but to begin clearing up the problems that have carried over the past few weeks.
“We’ve just got to get more sound and mentally focused on the field,” Bowe said. “All the penalties and turnovers can be corrected, so we’re going to go out there today and correct it.”
Contact Tabby Soignier at [email protected]