By Hunt Palmer
Saturday night in Kyle Field was jarring.
LSU losing on the road to a Top 15 team was always plausible. Texas A&M had beaten three of its four SEC opponents by double digits and entered the game as the favorite. The jarring part was the manner in which the game got away from LSU.
Texas A&M took the fight to the Tigers, and LSU didn’t have a punch to throw back.
LSU’s passing game, as flashy and productive as it has been through two months, wilted in the form of turnovers and sacks. A&M’s running game was a black sledgehammer to a ball of white Play-Doh.
While the sport has trended toward the pass at every competitive level, the running game remains a vital component that also inherently carries less risk.
While LSU was gift wrapping scoring opportunities to the Aggies, A&M was surging methodically into the end zone drive after drive without seemingly breaking a sweat.
LSU’s lack of a running game isn’t anything new. It has plagued the Tigers in the program’s last three losses.
Saturday night LSU totaled 24 yards on 23 carries. Sacks often warp rushing numbers, but these were bleak no matter if sacks are included or not.
Josh Williams and Caden Durham combined to rush 18 times for 38 yards.
“When our run game has not gone well, we’ve lost some individual matchups up front,” Kelly said. “The quarterback is instrumental in reading whether he has a loaded box or not. And then, clearly, when there’s an extra hat, making somebody miss. And we just didn’t collectively execute at a high level in the running game.”
Despite John Emery’s back-to-back carries for 39 and 10 yards in the third quarter against USC, LSU’s backs only accounted 102 yards on 25 carries in the opener. When half your yardage comes on two carries, your rushing attack isn’t consistent enough.
At Alabama last season, Williams and Emery combined with Logan Diggs for 43 yards on 13 carries.
Yes, LSU ran it exceptionally well in Oxford, dropping that, 55-49, shootout to Ole Miss. But in Week 1, Florida State held LSU running backs to 49 yards on 12 carries. Williams chewed up 35 of those on one carry.
Simply put, LSU’s inability to hand the ball off and produce consistent runs has been a massive problem against good fronts.
The not-so-good ones? LSU has actually had some success.
Last season Diggs had a three week stretch versus Arkansas, Missouri and Auburn where he carried the ball 56 times for 328 yards, an average of 5.9 yards per carry and 109 yards per game. Even with Jayden Daniels annihilating the Florida defense for 606 yards of his own, the quartet of Williams, Emery, Noah Cain and Kaleb Jackson combined for 96 yards on 22 carries without a single rush over 14 yards.
Daniels’s brilliance certainly helped the rushing attack. No arguments from me there. His threat to pull the ball down and run it kept defenses honest, and Garrett Nussmeier doesn’t offer that.
Still, Durham found 98 yards and scored a pair of touchdowns at South Carolina and 101 more and three scores at Arkansas.
Texas A&M is the best rushing defense against conference foes in the SEC. Ole Miss ranks sixth.
No one on the remaining schedule rivals those two.
Alabama has been gashed at times on the ground. Here are some numbers:
South Florida: 206 yards on 46 carries
Vanderbilt: 166 yards on 54 carries
South Carolina: 132 yards on 39 carries
Tennessee: 214 yards on 43 carries
Missouri: 167 yards on 39 carries
Yes, USF, Vandy and South Carolina have mobile quarterbacks. However, none of the teams on that list can throw the ball nearly as effectively as LSU. Defending Nussmeier the same way as LaNorris Sellers or Diego Pavia wouldn’t be wise.
Florida’s run defense ranks 15 of 16 SEC teams in league games. Oklahoma and Vanderbilt rank eighth and ninth. Oklahoma will be arriving at Death Valley fresh off of a date with Alabama.
LSU is unlikely to “fix” the rushing issues when the time comes to play the best teams in college football week after week. That would only be the Tigers’ fate if they win out and make the playoff.
But week-to-week, this is still a dangerous offense that scored 17 first half points at Texas A&M with two missed field goals. LSU had rolled up 283 yards on the Aggies in 30 minutes of football.
LSU is flawed offensively, not inept.
While the upcoming matchup with Alabama does feature a pair of Top 5 teams like it has so many times in recent memory, it carries a different weight with elimination on the line.
To win the game, LSU will have to feature its trademark passing attack. The rushing attack better help, too.
