Purple and gold out for Florida

Updated: October 8, 2003, 3:40 PM ET

BATON ROUGE, La. -- LSU coach Nick Saban does not expect Tiger Stadium to be a sea of purple and gold Saturday when Florida visits.

Tiger fans are being asked to wear white to Saturday's game, with special white T-shirts printed just for the occasion.

The last time the school tried to "white out" an opponent was seven years ago this week.

In 1996 then Vanderbilt coach Rod Dowhower refused to agree to let LSU wear its traditional white jerseys at home. An exception to the NCAA rule, pushed through by former LSU and Vandy coach Gerry DiNardo (now at Indiana) allows home teams to wear white with their opponent's permission.

On a similar note, former Florida coach Steve Spurrier (now with the Washington Redskins) once only agreed to let LSU wear white at home if the Tigers did the same the next year in Gainesville. The Tigers wore gold jerseys in a 22-10 loss at Florida in 1998. ^------<

SABAN GOES FOR 75: Saban will be going for his 75th career victory Saturday. Saban is 74-38-1 in 10 years as a head coach at LSU, Michigan State and Toledo. That includes a 31-12 record at LSU, 1-2 vs. Florida. Florida coach Ron Zook is 11-8 in his second season. ^------<

LSU-UF SERIES: The Tigers ended a decade and a half of domination by Florida with a 36-7 victory in Gainesville last season. It was just LSU's second win in its last 15 meetings with the Gators. Florida leads the series with LSU 26-20-3, 14-11 in Tiger Stadium. The Gators only loss in their last seven trips to Baton Rouge was a 28-21 LSU win in 1997, the Tigers' first-ever victory over a No. 1-ranked team. Florida won here 44-15 in 2001. LSU is trying to post back-to-back wins over the Gators for the first time since 1986-87 -- 28-17 in Gainesville in 1986, 13-10 in Baton Rouge in '87. ^------<

MAKING THE CALL: CBS will bring its "A" team back to Tiger Stadium for the second time in three games. Vern Lundquist will handle play-by-play duties, with Todd Blackledge serving as color analyst and Jill Arrington the sideline reporter.

The game will also be shown on a tape-delayed basis by Cox Sports. LSU is 3-0 in nationally televised games this season and 80-88-7 overall.< ^------<

BY THE NUMBERS: While LSU was idle last week, Tiger quarterback Matt Mauck regained the SEC lead in pass efficiency. His rating of 150.9 outpointed Ole Miss' Eli Manning, who helped the Rebels beat Florida 20-17 last week in Gainesville.

Team-wise, LSU leads the league in seven major categories: scoring offense (40.2 points per game), scoring defense (8.6), kickoff returns (28.1 yards per return), rushing defense (58.2 yards per game), total defense (256.0 ypg), team pass efficiency and pass efficiency defense.

This story is from ESPN.com's automated news wire. Wire index