Scooter Hobbs: Star back a thing of the past
Published 8:00 am Friday, September 22, 2023
There are numerous historical examples of this, but perhaps the most glaring instance — possibly an urban legend — came when a “committee” convened with marching orders and good intentions to invent a horse.
Given that it was a committee, it fiddled around, spent a lot of money and eventually came up with the camel.
Oh, the committee theory scare doesn’t always hold water.
But it’s always a scary word in football circles, government bureaucracy, etc.
Take football. Even a committee of two at the quarterback position somehow became a code word for “you don’t have one.” And having three, well, it even seems to be threatening to bring down the Alabama dynasty.
That’s probably exaggerated.
Yet, the one place you can often get away with it is probably with the running backs, assuming you have the horses (as opposed to a “caravan” of awkward camels). Yes, camel groups are called a caravan, although “flock” is permissible in some circles even though they don’t normally fly.
But is LSU pushing it with — how many is it? — four, five sometimes six running backs?
It does seem simpler when one, preferably two, separate themselves from the herd (horses). As most football aficionados know, there’s still only one ball to go around.
That can be trumped by the “fresh legs” approach to the position winning out over “getting into a rhythm.”
That may be what LSU is up to.
Bottom line: If it continues, it probably guarantees that quarterback Jayden Daniels will lead the Tigers in rushing for a second consecutive year. He has the lead in yards (157; 203 when you take away sacks) and in carries (35). One of the unspoken goals for this season’s offense was for someone else to get that honor.
That’s understandable. Daniels is probably the best runner on the team.
But it’s not like they’re not spreading it around, even though having that many in the mix sometimes suggests you have a lot of good running backs, but no true bell cow stud.
Head coach Brian Kelly doesn’t seem overly concerned.
At the moment, there seems to be five of them vying for the ball. And that doesn’t count sophomore Tre Bradford, who caught a 55- yard pass on the first play of the season and really hasn’t been heard from since.
The “workhorse,” if you can call it that, has been Notre Dame transfer Logan Diggs, yet he has only 30 percent of the running back carries.
Three others — Josh Williams, Kaleb Jackson and Noah Cain — are getting right about 20 percent of the carries, and another, John Emery, is just now returning to the mix.
Maybe it will be selection by situation from here on out.
To foolishly categorize them at random, Diggs is probably the most versatile, Williams had the best season last year, Cain has a certain nose for short yardage and the end zone and Jackson, a freshman, is the most viral. For what it’s worth, he is the biggest of LSU’s X-Twitter and TikTok stars after his signature demolition run against Mississippi State hit the Internet. It was that stiff arm to break free before knocking another Bulldogs defender clear into next week that had everybody buzzing.
His day may come. Certainly there’s a lot of upside there and running back is a spot where freshmen traditional can contribute. But Kelly, even though he has no qualms about playing freshmen, seems to be preaching caution.
“A young man who’s still learning the game,” Kelly said of the 6-foot, 225-pounder who missed his senior year at Liberty Magnet High School in Baton Rouge with an injury. “He’s learning a lot about the game as we along.
“It’s easy to see the raw, physical ability, but there’s so much more to it than that. If you watched the Mississippi State game, you saw how Diggs and Williams were able to do third-down (pass) protection against a very difficult scheme. Kaleb was not ready for that yet. He will get ready for that, but he’s not there yet.”
They have the luxury of bringing him along at his pace. There’s something to be said for all of them.
So maybe it will work. The Tigers are third in the SEC in rushing at 193 yards per game, first in total offense with 537.
The sample size is still too small for judgment.
But committees everywhere are pulling for them to help rehabilitate their image.
—
Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com