LSU?s holiday heft weighs on Les Miles? mind

Les Miles is a little worried about his team's figure.

Miles gave LSU players a week off after their Dec. 3 blowout over Georgia in the SEC Championship Game, and some of them came back overweight and out of shape. While he isn't naming any names, the number of players who came back looking like they wanted to eat their way to a national championship prompted Miles to get back to preseason basics ? weight checks, dietary restrictions and, of course, lots of good old-fashioned sweating.

"He got mad after our last break because we had a lot of people out of shape and overweight," senior safety Brandon Taylor told thetowntalk.com. He was getting on them hard. He was letting them know that this is the biggest game that you're going to play in so you want to be in the best shape.

"He said you might not ever get another chance to play in a game like this again, so you just want to be in tip-top shape. You don't want to have any regrets out there on the field. So he warned us about eating too much when we broke for Christmas."

It seems unfathomable that players would let themselves go with just a month before the BCS national championship game against No. 2 Alabama, the biggest game of their college careers, but it probably was also the first bit of freedom the Tigers had been given since August.

The Tigers were back at practice Monday after a week off for the holiday, and returned to find Miles waiting with a scale. (I like to imagine him wielding a pair of body fat pincers, too.) Some players were still a little hefty, but it wasn't nearly as bad as earlier in the month. With a little more than a week remaining until the national title game, Miles has plans to make sure all of his players make weight.

"I checked some weights," Miles said. "There was some leftover turkey and some healthy stuffing that was kind of reminiscent of the meals that were eaten over the break. But there was as nice, healthy sweat acquired (Monday), and that'll happen again (Tuesday), as well."

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Graham Watson is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow her @Yahoo_Graham.

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