[autotag]John Emery Jr.[/autotag] did not play a game in 2021 due to eligibility issues. According to [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag], his eligibility for the season opener remains in question.
Kelly added that he couldn’t get into it, but did expect Emery to contribute to the team this year.
Emery, a former five-star, is now entering his fourth year as a Tiger. This has been billed as his breakout year. If he were to miss some time, a wrench could be thrown into some of those plans. A running back room that already has something to prove would have even more questions.
[autotag]Corey Kiner[/autotag] transferred to Cincinnati in the spring, and [autotag]Tre Bradford[/autotag] is no longer on the roster.
If Emery is out against Florida State, LSU would enter the game with [autotag]Noah Cain[/autotag], [autotag]Armoni Goodwin[/autotag] and [autotag]Josh Williams[/autotag].
Cain and Goodwin would get the bulk of the touches, but what do we know about them?
In 2019, Cain was one of the best freshman backs in the country. He got hurt in 2020 and struggled in 2021. Reports from camp have spoken highly of Cain, but we’ll need to see it on the field first to believe he’s back to the player he was in 2019.
Goodwin was a top 100 recruit. He has the talent to be a star. He can make people miss on the outside and run between the tackles. He’s a decent receiver, too. He dealt with injuries in 2021 and never really got a chance to prove himself. He’s now a sophomore, but we still don’t really know who he is.
Even with Emery healthy, it looks like LSU will take more of a committee approach. Kelly said they don’t have that pure feature back on the roster right now.
If you wanted to read into that, you could say that Kelly doesn’t see any one of these guys as a game-changing star. If there were a true difference maker on the roster like that, he would have emerged as the feature back.
I still believe that over the course of the year, we will see one of these guys take the reigns. Emery, Cain, and Goodwin are all too talented for at least one to not break out.
A committee approach would be fine, too. Each one of these backs is different and they all serve a different purpose on this offense.
Kelly and OC [autotag]Mike Denbrock[/autotag] have built a lot of their offenses around the run game over the years. They’ll likely want to try and do that again this year.
For that to work, the questions we have about this room need to be answered soon. The talent is there and there are reasons for optimism, but it’s one of the areas worth watching when LSU takes the field against Florida State.
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