Outside of Jayden Daniels’ solid production on the ground, LSU’s running backs failed to make much of an impact against a strong Florida State defensive front in Sunday night’s 45-24 loss to Florida State.
Disregarding a 35-yard run by [autotag]Josh Williams[/autotag] — the group’s only explosive carry of the night — LSU’s running back room totaled just 14 yards on 11 carries.
There were some key players missing, however. [autotag]Armoni Goodwin[/autotag] was out as he continues to work his way back from a hamstring injury, while [autotag]John Emery Jr.[/autotag] was unavailable for unspecified reasons.
However, one surprise was that [autotag]Logan Diggs[/autotag], a Notre Dame transfer and late addition to the roster, didn’t suit up. After the game, coach [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] addressed Diggs’ absence and the play of the group, in general.
“Well, I mean, everybody is searching for balance in the running game,” he said. “So we didn’t have the kind of balance that we needed. Logan Diggs was a coach’s decision. I don’t know quite whether he’s a hundred percent and able to practice at the level that we need him to quite yet.
Yeah, I mean, look, everybody is looking for that balance in the running game. You saw what we tried to do. We tried to run the football in those very important downs, and we weren’t as effective. And we are going to go back and we are going to work on it, and we are going to continue to be diligent in those areas because we’ve got to be better at it. So we’ve got a minimum of 11 more games, and I’m going to tell you now that we are going to be better and we are going to commit ourselves to that.”
Though he wasn’t listed on the injury report during the week, it seems the coaches saw something that caused them to scratch him from the active roster.
LSU will hope it can find more production from its run game beyond Daniels once the running back room is back closer to full strength in the coming weeks.
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