Ridley enters Miles’ radar

• By GARY LANEY
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Nov 3, 2009 - Page: 2C

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It’s not common for LSU coach Les Miles to single out a player for increased playing time at his weekly news conference.

But that’s exactly what he did Monday with running back Stevan Ridley.

Normally a key member of LSU’s special teams, Ridley rushed for a career-high 73 yards on eight carries in a 42-0 win over Tulane on Saturday. That might mean more playing time for a player whose progress was limited early in the season after undergoing off-season knee surgery.

“I hope so,” Ridley said. “If the opportunity presents itself, I hope I can go out there and just be a football player.

“I just wanted to treat it like any other time I touch the football,” Ridley said. “I’m used to going in there and running hard and making a play. Sometimes if you go out there and give it your all, some amazing things can happen.”

“I think you’ll look forward to Stevan Ridley getting more snaps,” said Miles, who suggested Ridley’s play on special teams has prepared him to make more of an impact as an every-down player.

“If you watch our special teams play, he plays key roles in our special teams, and I think it’s allowed him to play tough,” Miles said. “It’s given him experience on the field. I think it has allowed him to mature, and he is very comfortably a middle thread of our football team.”

It’s an interesting commitment for Miles coming just after Charles Scott’s first 100-yard game of the season. Ridley got all of his carries in one fourth-quarter drive against Tulane, eating up the bulk of the yards in a 98-yard drive. With Ridley such an emphasis on that drive, the sophomore wound up with more carries than Scott’s normal backups, Keiland Williams and Trindon Holliday.

Ridley has seen more offensive snaps since the bye week. In the Auburn game Oct. 24, he played some snaps at fullback.

“I run with the second-team offense against our first-team defense all the time in practice,” Ridley said. “If our defense can run and block against them, we can run with anybody. We have a sense of confidence as a group.”

Peek trying to get healthy

While much of the attention in Alabama’s passing game goes to talented sophomore wide receiver Julio Jones, tight end Colin Peek was actually the team’s leading receiver before the Oct. 24 Tennessee game.

But he never made it out of warm-ups against the Volunteers.

Reports from that game were that Peek, a Mackey Award candidate who is second on the team in receptions (19) and third in receiving yards (213), suffered a knee injury before the 12-10 win when a teammate fell on him during pre-game warm-ups. Peek tried to play early in that game but couldn’t.

Now, the senior is trying to get healthy in time for LSU on Saturday.

“Colin ran in the pool (Sunday) and he is going to run today (Monday),” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “So it will be day-to-day to see how he can do. Hopefully, he will be able to do some functional things on Tuesday, and if everything goes well, we’re hopeful he will be able to play in the game and contribute in the game.”

If Peek can’t go, LSU will likely see redshirt freshman Michael Williams, who has just one reception on the season.

Helton back

After missing last week’s game against Tulane with a hip flexor injury, Miles said LSU punter Derek Helton will be back for Alabama.

“I suspect Derek Helton will be the guy who takes those snaps,” Miles said. “He could well have punted last Saturday, but we decided to give him some time.”

Helton has excelled at hang time on his punts this season, part of the reason why LSU is third in the Southeastern Conference in net punting. That could figure in big in a game where two of the SEC’s best defenses are matched up.

Rested and ready

LSU came off its open week in mid-October and has followed it with its best games to date, outscoring Auburn and Tulane by a combined 73-10.

The question now is, will a week off have the same effect on Alabama?

The Crimson Tide had been struggling a bit, by their standard, before getting Saturday off. The Tide needed a blocked field goal on the game’s last play to get by Tennessee a week after South Carolina challenged late into what eventually was a 20-6 Alabama win.

Still, Alabama entered the open week 8-0 and ranked No. 2.

“I think that when you play eight games in a row, everybody is a little tired emotionally, mentally and physically,” Saban said. “It’s been my experience, when you play more than six games in a row, without getting some rest, it gets to be a little strain on the players to continue to make progress.

“So I think the bye week did everybody a lot of good in terms of getting some rest physically, mentally and emotionally in every way in terms of finishing the season.”

Tech-LSU on ESPNU

The SEC set the kickoff time for the Louisiana Tech at LSU game for 6 p.m. Nov. 14. The game will be shown on ESPNU.

It’s LSU’s homecoming game.

Tickets pricey

The LSU-Alabama game is the hottest ticket in college football this week.

So says the Website Fansnap.com, an aggregate site for ticket buyers on the secondary market. It pulls listings from more than 60 online partners, including major resell players eBay and StubHub.

According to data released Monday by Fansnap, the average ticket for Saturday’s game is $413, more than any college or pro game this week, and there were just more than 2,500 tickets available on various Web sites.

The second biggest seller of the week is Ohio State-Penn State, which has tickets selling at $330 on average.

But the prices for the LSU-Bama game have gone down from a mid-October high of about $451 a ticket. Prices are also well off the $550 average price tag of an LSU-Florida ticket the week of that game. Price demand is similar to the Notre Dame-USC game, which sold tickets at an average of $460 on the secondary market.