LSU run game "beginning to pay off," provide necessary balance

“Consistency,” “cohesiveness” and “complementary football” have gradually gone from goals for LSU to attributes of which Brian Kelly is increasingly seeing his team show examples each Saturday.

Those qualities all tie into a level of balance the coach emphasized as critical to the Tigers competing at the highest levels, on a national scale.

And with arguably their three most complete games to date, including their two best rushing performances, coming in their past three outings, Kelly is seeing clear signs of progress toward that end.

“We want to be equally efficient,” he said, when asked about finding different ways to win. “Whether it’s running or throwing as an offense, and then from a defensive standpoint, if you’re one-dimensional — another words if you can’t stop the run, but you’re great against the pass — you really can never be consistent in anything.

“Trying to find that consistency is really about balance and being good in both phases: running the ball, throwing the ball, stopping the run, being efficient in terms of pass defense. Those are areas that we’ve worked hard. So winning for me is about how you can get to a level of consistency at all phases. And we’re getting better at that. We had some glaring weaknesses in one of those phases or another and we’re shoring those up as we go through this season.”

The emergence of LSU’s once-worrisome defense has been well-documented.

Somewhat more quietly, the Tigers’ running game on the other side of the ball has also shown some critical development.

LSU ran for 158 yards and three touchdowns Saturday in a 34-10 win at Arkansas, the team’s second 150-yard rushing performance of the season and first against a Power-Four opponent.

The Tigers’ 4.3-yard average per carry on 37 attempts also marked the team’s third-highest of the season, second-highest against Power-Four competition and best thus far through three SEC games.

“I feel like what was better was the cohesiveness of the tight ends, the wide receivers, the quarterback getting us in the right plays, backs seeing it better — there was cohesiveness,” Kelly said. “We were disconnected at one of those junctures at one time or another when we were struggling running the football.

“It wasn’t just the five guys up front. It was something else that was going on. Maybe it was an offensive lineman one time, and then the next we didn’t push-crack with the receiver, or the other time we didn’t get an up-cut with an outside-zone play, or the tight end botched off the end instead of stretching him. We got the connection of all those guys in unison this past weekend, because we’ve been spending so much more time on it in practice. So we’ll continue to do that, because it’s beginning to pay off. And we need that running game for us to continue to have the balance we need on offense.”

That “pay-off’ has also coincided with the emergence of freshman running back Caden Durham.

The former Duncanville (Texas) star has now surpassed the 100-yard mark in two of LSU’s past three games — the first two starts of his career — including Saturday becoming the first LSU freshman to ever rush for 100 yards and three touchdowns in the same game.

Durham now leads the running back room, across the board, with 382 yards and eight touchdowns on 62 carries for averages of 6.2 yards per attempt and 63.7 yards per contest.

For all the vision, explosiveness and track speed the young back brings to the position, Kelly has been maybe even more impressed with his mentality and ability to have his early success while gritting through a foot injury suffered Sept. 28 against South Alabama, the first of those two big games.

“I’m really impressed with a freshman running back that is not playing at 100%, but in there playing with grit and toughness and just the kind of resolve that he has,” Kelly said. “A lot of guys would not be in the game. He’s playing at about 80-85%, but he’s got great vision, he’s got toughness, keeps his legs moving and, you know, again, injuries are hard to deal with at any position. But when you’re a running back and you’ve got an injury and you’re still fighting through it, I think it says a lot about the young man, and I’m really proud of him.”