LSU Gets Back to Work During Bye Week

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LSU went back to work on Tuesday as the second-ranked Tigers are looking to use the open date practice week as an attempt to improve in all three phases of their game.

by Tiger Rag News Services

(At left, Les Miles (Photo by Matt Deville — © 2008 Tiger Rag)

LSU will enjoy its second open date of the year on Saturday before returning to action on Oct. 11 against Florida in Gainesville. LSU goes into this week’s open date with a 4-0 overall mark and a 2-0 Southeastern Conference record.

The schedule for the Tigers this week calls for three practices – Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday – before a conditioning session on Friday afternoon. LSU coach Les Miles said he was going to give the team off on Saturday and Sunday before returning to practice on Monday in preparation for the Florida contest.

Miles said he will use the three practice sessions this week as an opportunity to get a head start on the Florida game plan as well as doing a thorough self-scout on the LSU football team.

“Today was a practice where we challenged the coaches and players to get better,” Miles said after the workout. “We worked on personnel and pieces of our football - very specific strategy of our football – offense, defense and special teams.

“We did some things today that we hadn’t done and it looked like it. We are getting better and improving. I liked the spirit of the day. It was good work and we’re on pace.”

Miles said one of the keys to an open date is to take a look at the tendencies of the LSU football team and see where they can improve.

“We work on pieces of our football through self-scouting,” Miles said. “In other words, those things that the defense has done, they’ll try not to do. We’ll break a tendency offensively the same way.

“We also introduce pieces of a game plan for several opponents, most specifically for Florida. It won’t be a rigid a game plan that all three phases are preparing their strategy, calls and personnel all specific to a game, but it gets us started.”