LSU head coach Lane Kiffin met with the media following Monday’s practice (Day 11 of fall camp) to discuss the first scrimmage, player progress, and more.
On overall takeaways from Saturday’s first scrimmage:
“Yeah, I thought the first defense played extremely well. Gave the offense a lot of pressure and really good in coverage. So that was great to see. Obviously anytime in scrimmages, both sides are never going to look really good. And so first offense struggled for a while, then came back and played well later, which is what we hope for. But thought there’s a lot of good things to evaluate. We played for a long time. I think 170 total plays. So that was really good to see to get a lot of information on our guys and half of it being tackling helped us on some evals, too.”
On Roman Mothershed working with the tight ends and the tight end room:
“Yeah, we held TDZ today just as normal type of decisions and so we just ran him there on some routes and things like that. But Roman’s doing well outside and he’s been playing well for us and making big plays.”
On Coach O not being at practice:
“Yeah, he wasn’t feeling real well. We sent him home. And so we expect him to be back soon.”
On whether this is a tough stretch in the middle of camp:
“I think it’s tough for them. Yeah, I mean that’s where they got to push and you know we went out there today and it’s really hot and did some long drives where they had to stay in with no subs for them to get used to it. So, you know, we got to push through. We’ve got to do better even in areas that maybe were really good or individual players that performed really well Saturday. Like we got to go to another level. We got to play better than what we played all around and especially our backups got to play better so we can rotate.”
On making practice harder than the games:
“We try to make it as hard as possible. I mean, we gave him a break today, you know, four minutes… but you know, you always want to try to create practice harder than the game, and the only way to do that is to really, really push.”
On special teams philosophy and utilizing starters:
“Yeah, all starters are available. We always look at what’s the difference between them and the next guy. Because ideally you’d like it not to be. So you create more roles and less play counts come off. And also part of punt is having a great gunner, which we did last year. We played a receiver that was lights out at gunner that forced a lot of fair catches. So it all goes together and we just always kind of look outside the box for ideas.”
On preseason polls (LSU ranked No. 11 in the AP Poll):
“I don’t think anything of it, and that’s just not coach speak. I mean, I’ve been parts of where we’ve been low a year ago and finished really high and where we’ve been really high and finished really low. And more now more than ever, it really shouldn’t mean anything. I mean, we don’t know as coaches, let alone media or coaches know other teams. Because we barely know our own team how we’ll play because you have so many new players there. There’s no way you could figure out… I bet you analytics from the last two years of polls and where people have finished compared to where they start probably have been a long ways off compared to years ago.”
On what he looks for to determine progress at this point in camp:
“Well, there’s a lot of things. We really try to look at individual players where they’re at and then from their groups and then from their sides of the ball and then what roles can we start to mold people into. You know, we try to look at not just week one, but week three, week five, week seven. Maybe there’s players that aren’t projecting to maybe be ready for certain roles, but maybe they will be because they’re younger players or struggling to learn. So we’re in constant meetings about that and trying always to fit pieces and figure out where somebody can take a few plays off of some situation of someone else.”
On the impact of the green dot in the helmet and Charlie Weis:
“I believe we’re number one in the country over green dot time of total offense and passing offense. So I think it’s benefited us. I think that speaks a lot to Charlie and his ability to communicate to the quarterback and then the relationship developed in that and how that all works. It’s not just easy to just give a play… Ours is a lot more in depth of what we do and how we work it and where the 15 cuts off 15 seconds and our ability to get things done fast. So we can still talk to them all the way up to that point. If you think about it, if you’re a slower team, you don’t have very long to talk to until it comes off. So I think it’s been of great benefit to our last two quarterbacks and how they played.”
(On the stat that Charlie Weis and Lane Kiffin have scored the most points in college football since the green dot):
“I like that. I think it’s cool that Charlie’s first. I’m gonna go tell him that. Give him some rat poison. He’s first in the country… I didn’t know total points. So I think that speaks a lot obviously to Charlie… and you’re doing that in the SEC. There’s a lot of easier conferences defensive-wise definitely to do that in. That’s why he was so sought after… and why he makes what he makes.”
On Harlem Berry’s growth from spring to fall:
“Yeah, I think we gotta remember Harlem’s young, you know, when we got here one year and coming from a smaller league before that and so there’s some transition in that and everybody nowadays just expects everybody to be an impact player immediately. And so I think he’s started to run the ball more physical. He had a good long touchdown run Saturday. So I’m very excited about where he can get to.”
On concerns about true freshmen on the defensive line:
“Yeah, I do. I mentioned it before… if you study, old teams win now. And I just think that’s the maturity of the player, especially the fourth to fifth year player… and how they think and what’s important to them and they’re used to playing too. They’re veterans… the fifth year player plays different than the rookie usually. So there’s a lot of concern there. And so how much can we get them ready to do and that they play really well versus the mistakes that they make, especially because of our schedule, the opener and the ninth SEC game. You don’t have those games that you had those opportunities before.”
Transcript compiled and lightly cleaned for readability from the official LSU Sports press conference.
LSU Football Report 