LSU Football Looking at How it Can Improve Run Game This Offseason

While LSU awaits on freshmen, Tigers will go into offseason with an open competition at running back

It was hard to gauge just exactly how well the LSU offense did in Saturday's game because it was limited in one very critical area. LSU only had two true running backs dressed out for the scrimmage, veteran Tyrion Davis-Price and walk on Nick Demas. 

No John Emery, Kevontre Bradford or even Josh Williams, three running backs who were participating on and off throughout the spring session. Davis-Price had 15 carries for 81 yards to lead all rushers while Demas carried seven times.

Quarterbacks Max Johnson and Myles Brennan both had net gains and so did wide reciever Koy Moore, who was used in the backfield from time to time. It was a less than stellar performance mainly because of the lack of bodies but coach Ed Orgeron said one of the first goals this offseason is to find out what does and doesn't work with this running offense. 

"The first thing that we're doing is we're doing a self scout of our run game. We've got all of the runs up on tape and I wanna look at what we're doing and how we're doing it," Orgeron said on Off the Bench Tueday. "Does it fit our personnel. There are some things we're doing very well and there are some things we're not doing very well."

Orgeron has said multiple times throughout the spring how, when healthy, Davis-Price and Emery look like the running backs he recruited out of high school. Both have missed time this spring with nagging injuries. But the Tigers won't truly know what this unit is made of until freshmen Corey Kiner and Armoni Goodwin arrive this summer. 

This is a duo that while not the tallest, are physically gifted, compact and strong while showing the ability to catch out of the backfield. That's an element that was so useful in 2019 when Clyde Edwards-Helaire recorded 50 receptions out of the backfield for the purple and gold. 

"You look at Ty Davis-Price, John Emery and the two outstanding backs we've got coming in, we should be very strong running the ball with an experienced offensive line," Orgeron said. "We've gotta get the run game going, it was not there in the spring game and we're looking at how we could get it fixed."

Because of injury, Emery nor Davis-Price have done much to make this job somewhat closed. This will be a wide open competition come fall, much like the quarterback spot, and should be fun to watch unfold.