The 22 participants on the football field aren’t workers. They’re players. It’s a game.
The stakes are remarkably high. Multiple millionaires roam the sidelines and the playing surface. Wins and losses matter. Legacies are at stake. But’s it’s supposed to be fun.
LSU head coach Lane Kiffin wants his players to enjoy the highlights. He promotes piped-in music, light shows and has a basketball goal on his sideline to celebrate big plays. Defensive end Jordan Ross jammed one home Saturday night after his pick-six whipped Tiger Stadium into a frenzy.
“I would say Coach Kiffin does an amazing job of making sure that we’re having fun and also handling business,” said sophomore wide receiver Winnie Watkins. “We prepare very, very hard, and like I feel like to compare to anybody in the country, I feel like we prepare the most. When we go into the game, he makes sure that we know every answer to every question on the test. So, when we get into the game time, now it’s time to have fun because we already prepared all these weeks.”
Watkins feels that way on the outside, but his sentiments were echoed by teammates at other positions this week. Offensive tackle Jordan Seaton praised his two offensive line coaches Eric Wolford and James Cregg.
The offensive line didn’t allow a sack against Clemson, and the Tigers ran for 306 yards.
“This coaching staff does a good job with making sure we know every look we’re going to get,” Seaton said. “And back to my coach, Coach Wolf, he’ll bring up a look from Alabama 2016 against Georgia 2013. And it’ll just be amazing because you never know what look you’re going to get. This is the most prepared I’ve ever been.”
As the fourth quarter dawned, Cookie Kiffin, Lane’s nephew and linebackers coach Chirs Kiffin’s son, sprayed smoke from a fire extinguisher as the sideline danced. LSU had pushed its lead north of 35 points on a Clemson team with no answers.
It was a party.
“All this time and all these walkthroughs, and all these meetings, to go out there and have our fun and showcase our talents,” Watkins said. “And now we get to play basketball. Now we get to do the fire extinguisher thing. And now it looks good, but we’re putting it all together with our preparation.”
Again, the team’s readiness continually is regularly mentioned. It’s clearly a message that has been drilled into the players’ heads.
Watkins has experienced it at two places, having spent last year with Kiffin at Ole Miss. It’s all new to Seaton, but both shined in their LSU debuts. So, too, did edge rusher Princewill Umanmielen who notched a sack last week.
Umanmielen was the leading sack man on the most successful Ole Miss team in 60 years a season ago.
He knows how this coaching staff operates and what it will take to replicate that at LSU.
“It’s football at the end of the day,” he said. “That’s how the fun comes. But the hard work part, we just attack every day. You’ve got to be the same person every day. Can’t change, can’t get complacent. The fun part, yeah, it just comes as we win.”
