LSU Football: Tigers have a plan to replace Clyde Edwards-Helaire
By Zach Ragan
LSU football will have to replace running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire in 2020.
LSU football‘s dominance in 2019 led to an unfortunate byproduct — the Tigers had 14 players selected in the 2020 NFL Draft.
Several of those players had eligibility remaining, but they chose to head to the NFL instead of remaining in Baton Rouge (I can’t blame them, go get paid!).
One of the players that could’ve stayed another year was running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who was a junior last season.
Edwards-Helaire was a key part of the Tigers’ offense in 2019. The Louisiana native rushed for 1,414 yards and 16 touchdowns. He also caught 55 passes for 453 yards and a touchdown.
Needless to say, that’s a lot of lost production that LSU has to replace.
But Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron has a plan.
How LSU football will replace Clyde Edwards-Helaire
It won’t be just one player that replaces Edwards-Helaire. And it won’t be just two players, either.
In fact, it won’t even be three players. It’s going to take four running backs to replace Edwards-Helaire. Or at least that’s the plan.
“I think we have four excellent running backs. We’re going to use all of them. We have an excellent running backs coach. I can’t wait to watch those guys run,” said Coach O this week (via 247Sports).
Chris Curry, Tyrion Davis-Price, and John Emery will return from last year’s team to lead the charge. They’ll be joined by true freshman Kevontre Bradford (a player that Orgeron praised this week).
Davis-Price carried the ball 64 times for 295 yards and six touchdowns in 2019, so he has plenty of experience.
Bradford has homerun potential (good top-end speed), but he’s not a guy that needs to get 25 carries a game. Spreading the workload will allow LSU’s four running backs to remain healthy all season long.
Next. Stat shows how impressive LSU truly was in 2019. dark
Running back by committee approaches aren’t always popular. But that appears to be the plan for LSU heading into the 2020 season. At least until one running back becomes a player the Tigers can’t afford to take off the field very often.