Defense and special teams taking shape (article)

Carface · Apr 18, 2005

Rest of article here: http://www.lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/18/4263455150072

Tigers take long stride toward season

Defense and special teams taking shape

By Clinton Duckworth
Sports Contributor

April 18, 2005

Fans were treated to their annual dose of pigskin in Tiger stadium Saturday although it had a different flavor under first-year coach Les Miles.

Miles decided to make this spring’s final practice a 125-play situational scrimmage, instead of the traditional purple and gold game. He said it allowed him to prescribe the snaps for the players he wanted to evaluate.

“This was a good way to wrap up the spring,” Miles said. “We have had a good spring. We got what we needed to out of our 15 practices. Now we are ready to go from here.”

The crowd of 8,233 watched the Tigers practice all three phases of the game — offense, defense and special teams, with the first-team offense going against the first-team defense and the second-team offense challenging the second-team defense.

The situations included were redzone, goal line, two-minute drill, first-and-ten, third-and-short and third-and-long as well as kick and punt returns, kickoffs, field goals and punts.

Miles said there were several areas he wanted the team to progress throughout the spring and it did.

“I want to see our kicking teams be extremely good,” Miles said. “I want to make sure we do not turn the football over. I want our defense to play fast. I want our offense to be able to control the ball on the ground and in the air. We made progress in those spots, but certainly there is more work to be done.”

Miles said the defense’s overall performance improved Saturday compared to the previous week’s scrimmage, although he said the offense was somewhat vanilla with the exception of a couple of reverses.
Click to expand...

Log in or Sign up

Defense and special teams taking shape (article)

Carface What the...?

Share This Page