The LSU football team got a week of recuperation and relaxation after its 41-6 victory against Mississippi State, but now the players are preparing for the upcoming game with Florida at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in Baton Rouge.
“People always want to know if it’s a good time to have a bye week,” said LSU coach Nick Saban. “We try to use them to make an advantage for our team in terms of resting certain players, playing certain players and trying to get everybody healthy.”
Since Saban came to LSU, the Tigers are 4-2 following a bye week.
Last year, the Tigers were 2-0 following a week off, beating Mississippi State and Kentucky.
“The question that you always have is, once you get out of your routine of playing week-in and week-out, how do you focus for playing games?” Saban said. “In some degree you want the players to take a break emotionally because of the stress of preparing for games.
“But at the same time, they have to refocus and get ready to do it again. That is going to be the challenge for us this week.”
LSU remained No. 6 in both the Associated Press and the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ polls, as no team ranked higher than them lost.
The Tigers put their off week to good use.
Defensive tackle Chad Lavalais went back to his roots and gave a pregame speech to his former high school team at Marksville High School.
Although Marksville lost the game, it was not the worst thing that happened to Lavalais last week. With his day off Monday, he was put to work on his car after someone slashed his tire.
Defensive end Marcus Spears took in a few movies with his girlfriend and caught a few good games on Saturday.
He opted out of watching the Saints game Sunday because he does not like to see them lose.
Linebacker Lionel Turner said instead of focusing on an opponent, the team was able to work on some fundamentals and some techniques.
“I enjoyed the week off,” said Turner. “We had time to rest, and we went over a lot of fundamentals in practice, and I got to watch a few good games.”
“It was good to relax,” said tackle Rodney Reed. “And the two days off at the end of the week was really nice.”
The Tigers had Friday and Sunday off after practices on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
They held a brief practice Saturday during the Florida – Ole Miss game, but they said they were able to see a little bit of the game.
After missing the Tigers’ last game against State, Marquise Hill and Adrian Mayes will be back in the lineup.
The week off also gave injured Tigers Jack Hunt (knee), Shyrone Carey (knee) and Turner (surgery) some much needed time to rehabilitate.
Turner will play in Saturday’s game, and Hunt and Carey will be reevaluated later in the week to determine their playing status.