Tigers change focus of spring practice this season

With analysts around the country speculating his future may be on shaky ground, LSU coach Les Miles has turned his intensity into overdrive at the Tigers’ spring practices.

“You can tell he’s really excited and he’s ready to have a good season,” said senior linebacker Kelvin Sheppard. “He’s running around and getting on guys or telling them ‘Good job.’ He’s really more interactive and hands-on with the players.”

Miles and the Tigers opened spring practices last Monday at the Charles McClendon Indoor Practice Facility.

The team will go through the NCAA-allotted 15 practices throughout the month, ending on March 27 with the team’s nationally televised spring game.

And while spring football in Baton Rouge is usually mostly geared toward improving conditioning and player development for the Tigers, Miles has raised the stakes this time around.

“We just want to provide a backdrop so that we can develop a more physical style,” the coach said. “We want to create a competition in a physical way … We’re looking forward to putting guys on guys and seeing how they perform with their peers.”

One of the players who is enjoying the physicality of the practices is senior halfback Richard Murphy, who is exempt from contact this spring as he recovers from a torn ACL injury he sustained last season.

“This will be the most physical spring for them,” Murphy said while smiling. “I know I won’t be getting any of that contact.”

The senior said from the start of the team’s first meeting, the Tigers knew Miles meant business.

“He was shouting more and telling us what we need to do and how we need to repeat plays,” Murphy said. “That’s how we have to get started. We need to do those things in the spring and follow them into camp.”

In addition to a change in attitude, Miles said he and his newly constructed coaching staff are also tinkering with changing several players’ positions.

More than a dozen returning players have a different position listed on the team’s 2010 spring roster than they had in the 2009 roster.

Among the notable position shifts being tried out in the spring are moving sophomore Russell Shepard from quarterback to wide receiver, senior Jai Eugene from cornerback to safety and junior Joseph Barksdale from right tackle to left tackle.

Shepard was a situational “Wildcat” quarterback last season for the Tigers. The sophomore said the transition to wide receiver has been a fairly smooth one thanks to the tutelage of new wide receivers coach Billy Gonzales, who had spent the previous five seasons coaching up the passing game at Florida.

“In the past five years, he’s won two national championships as well as going to several SEC Championship games,” Shepard said. He brings to the table something that I’ve never experienced. I’ve never been to a championship game thus far in high school, middle school or college, so I definitely love his style.”

Shepard rushed for 277 yards and a pair of touchdowns, while catching five passes for 34 yards in his freshman season.

But despite not being as polished at receiver as senior Terrence Toliver or sophomore Rueben Randle, he expects to make a splash in the fall.

“I’m a perfectionist,” Shepard said. “Terrence Toliver has been playing receiver his whole life. It’s the same for Rueben Randle and Chris Tolliver and all those guys. So Coach Gonzales has challenged me to catch up to those guys in just six or seven months and I look forward to doing that.”

While Shepard is looking to add to a veteran offense, the Tigers have more of a blank slate on defense where they are trying to replace six starters from last season.

The leader of the 2010 defense will be senior Kelvin Sheppard, who turned down NFL temptations following a junior season that saw him record 110 tackles.

Sheppard said the Tigers’ defense this season will try to mimic another defense that is familiar to those in Louisiana.

“We watched the New Orleans Saints and watched how their defense operated and we noticed when we watched that they focused on getting turnovers,” Sheppard said. “That’s the main reason they won the Super Bowl – turnovers and good defense. You have to have that to be a great defense. That’s what we’re trying to do.”