Facing possibly the most physical game of the year againstAlabama on Saturday at 6:45 p.m. on an ESPN national telecast, LSUfootball coach Nick Saban said the Tigers have shown greatenthusiasm in practice this week.
“I like the spirit and enthusiasm and the energy of whatour players have been doing,” Saban said.
The Tigers must not count on emotions to carry them in thelatter part of the season, Saban said.
Instead, the team must focus on a few questions, he said.
“It’s really important from this point on with themental preparation and those things about how bad do you want to dosomething,” Saban said. “What are you willing to do todo it and how important is what this team accomplishes to theindividual members of the team? [Those] are all things that willkind of determine how important it is to them and how much of avalue we all have on [the season]. And that will determine a lothow we play.”
Showing unity on one issue, Saban said the Tigers will paytribute to three seniors who are injured for the rest of theseason: center Ben Wilkerson (knee), linebacker Dorsett Buckels andwide receiver Steve Mares (broken leg).
“I don’t know how much that has to do with thespirit of it,” Saban said. “But I think that it’sgood the players wanted to do something and the seniors wanted todo something to kind of serve the other guys who aren’t goingto be able to share the end of the season the way theyare.”
The offensive line will wear a decal on its helmet displayingthe No. 55 in honor of Wilkerson, who suffered a season-ending kneeinjury on the final play of the Tigers’ 24-7 win overVanderbilt.
Saban said the whole team will also wear an undershirt with thenumbers of the three injured seniors.
“Ben said that when he got hurt, he wanted to walk off thefield. So, we put ‘Champions don’t belong on theground,'” Saban said.
Saban said he sympathizes with the injured players as a similarthing happened to him in his senior year at Kent State at Toledo.He returned to practice for the bowl game but did not play.
“I got hurt my senior year about the same time right atthe end of the year,” Saban said. “I missed the lasttwo games my senior year. At least I got back and became a part ofthe team again.”
The hole Wilkerson leaves at center has made the Tigers readjustthe entire offensive line, Saban said.
Rudi Niswanger moves to center, while Nate Livings will movefrom right tackle to handle Niswanger’s guard position, Sabansaid. Brian Johnson takes over for Livings at right tackle.
“This is a move that you kind of hate to make at this timeof the year,” Saban said. “But we’re hopeful itworks out well and it’s looked OK in practice. We’lljust have to wait-and-see.”