AUBURN NOTEBOOK: Lester to play in Saturday's game

Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville said senior running back Brad Lester will play Saturday when sixth-ranked LSU (2-0) visits Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Lester, who was carted off the field last week at Mississippi State and diagnosed with a sprained neck, showed no ill effects of the injury during Thursday morning’s practice.

“Brad was full speed,” said Tuberville, who has directed No. 10 Auburn to a 3-0 mark, including 1-0 in SEC play. “Getting hit hard for the first time, you never know, but he says he has no problems. We’re going to leave that up to him. The doctors have cleared him.”

Tuberville said Lester performed no different in practice Thursday than he did before the injury.

“He ran hard and made full cuts,” the Tigers’ head coach said. “We had him back on some kickoff returns. That tells me (special teams and running backs coach) Eddie (Gran) has a lot of confidence in him if he’s putting him back there.

“He’s going to be sore. He’ll probably be sore three weeks from now. We wouldn’t put him out there if there were any chance that there was any damage. I mean, he had three MRIs, he had X-rays, went to a neurosurgeon. I talked to them and they said ‘no damage whatsoever.’

“One thing I told him is I won’t put him out there if he has a stiff neck and can’t turn, but he’s got a full range of motion.”

Lester has 148 yards and a touchdown on 35 carries this season.

Fumbles and age
Tuberville celebrated his 54th birthday Thursday with a party with friends and family following his weekly Tiger Talk radio show.

When asked Thursday what he got for his birthday, Tuberville replied, “I hope to get a coconut cake. That’s my favorite cake.

“I feel a lot smarter, not older. I got older after (Auburn had) two fumbles with four minutes left in the game the other night.”

Holliday offers challenge
LSU speedster Trindon Holliday leads the nation by averaging 40.3 yards punt return through two games this season. In last Saturday’s 41-3 win over North Texas, Holliday returned four punts for 163 yards, including a 92-yard touchdown.

“We’re playing against one of the better returners in the country and in my lifetime of watching guys return,” Tuberville said.

Other than tackling and basic coverage techniques, Tuberville said the Tigers’ main weapon defending LSU’s return man might not be a tackler at all.

“Your punter has to be focused on what he’s doing,” he said. “The great thing I like about our punter (Clinton Durst) is we get very good hang time. That is huge. We’ve had very few punts caught without being fair caught this year.”

Durst has averaged 43.7 yards per punt this season on 19 attempts.

Mental errors
Auburn was flagged 12 times for 94 yards in last week’s 3-2 win at Mississippi State, with most of the penalties attributed to the offensive line in the form of holding calls or false starts.

“The main thing is (offensive line coach) Hugh Nall has worked very hard on the mistakes that they made last week,” Tuberville said.

“We can’t continue to make those and most of them are mental. One thing we did do last week is that we played hard. I think sometimes when you play hard and want to play maybe harder you push yourself a little bit too much and you lose that concentration.”

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