Kirk Herbstreit reacts to John Emery missing rest of season for LSU, knee injury

Unfortunate news broke on Wednesday for the LSU running back room as veteran tailback John Emery was revealed to have torn his ACL in practice. He will miss the rest of the 2024 season after playing in the opener.

And the news comes as a major blow for Emery, who has battled numerous injuries and other issues to, ideally, see the field consistently in 2024. Just days after calling LSU’s game on Sunday, ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit reacted to the deflating news.

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“Damn,” Herbstreit said on social media. “I’m so sorry to hear this. This guy has worked so hard to get back in a position to play this year (his 6th year)-had an ACL last year suffered in November against the Gators. Gave [LSU] some great reps the other night late in that game. Just feel awful for him.”

Emery Jr. initially came to LSU before Brian Kelly arrived. He played in 37 games coming into the year and spent five years at LSU. He has 1,062 career rushing yards and 14 career rushing touchdowns. He also has 36 receptions for 320 yards and two touchdowns on his career.

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Last November, Emery suffered a torn ACL that cut his season short. Since then, he had opportunities to transfer out of LSU and hit the restart button. Instead, with the offer for him to stay at LSU, Emery decided it was best to return for 2024.

“I think the third thing was that he really did an incredible job rehabbing from the injury. Like compliance-wise. He was very committed to playing again. Like, if he was kind of so, so about playing — he was committed. He was gonna play,” Kelly said.

“So, when we added all that up, it just and Frank and I talked about it, said, ‘Look, we’ve got a kid here that a lot of things didn’t go his way, some of it was self-inflicted but he’s really shown that he wants to do this one more time.’ So, we sat down. We thought about it and we offered him the opportunity, and he had other offers out there and he felt like this was the best opportunity and we’re glad he’s back.”

It was the latest bit of unfortunate news following LSU’s season opening loss to the USC Trojans. Emery Jr. had 10 carries for 61 yards and one catch for 10 yards in the game.

LSU takes on Nicholls Saturday night in a Week 2 contest as the Tigers look to get their first win of the season.

On3’s Nick Kosko contributed to this report.