NASHVILLE — Brian Kelly wants his team to be physical and that starts with a power rushing attack.
“What I’ve always wanted to do from an offensive structure is create physicality at the line of scrimmage,” said Kelly at SEC Media Days inside the Grand Hyatt on Monday. “So we want to be physical — we do not want to be a finesse running team. We want physicality at the point of attack.”
LSU is coming off a 10-win season in which the Tigers ran the ball well averaging 5.0 yards per carry, 183.9 rushing yards per game and scored 39 rushing touchdowns.
The Tigers return five leading rushers from last year’s squad, including leading running back Josh Williams (532 yards, 6 TD) and senior quarterback Jayden Daniels who had a team-high 885 rushing yards and 11 rushing scores.
In addition to those returners, LSU added Logan Diggs who rushed for more than 1,000 yards last season at Notre Dame.
“We like his versatility,” said Kelly, who coached Diggs at ND in 2021. “He played really well at Notre Dame when he was given the opportunity. He was a little bit, I think, limited with a hamstring last year. We saw how he played against South Carolina with the big run… It just adds to that room with experience, and that’s kind of what we were looking for.”
Not only does LSU have a slew of experience coming back in the running back room, but the team returns four of its five starters across the offensive line including sophomore star right tackle Will Campbell.
That gives LSU a big advantage heading into the season.
“When we talk about offensive structures that I like to build, it’s physicality up front,” Kelly said. “I think we’re going to have that this year with returning veteran players, with our strength training and conditioning program into its second season. I like where we sit in that position.”
Yet, Kelly knows that you can’t rely solely on running the football, because of how one dimensional that makes a team’s offense. A team also must possess a quality signal caller and they have that in Daniels, who opted to return for another season.
“If you’re going to put eight guys on the line of scrimmage or nine guys on the line of scrimmage you’re going to limit our opportunities,” Kelly said. “We’re going to have to throw the ball really well, and in that particular game, we may not have a great running game. It doesn’t mean we can’t be physical at the point of attack and continue that physicality.”
Expectations are sky high for Daniels and the Tigers.
During the 2022 season, Daniels threw for 2,913 yards, 17 touchdowns to 3 interceptions while also rushing for 885 yards and 11 touchdowns on the ground. Daniels has developed from a player who was a large question mark at the start of last season to now being a player that is generating preseason Heisman Trophy buzz.
Kelly expects even more progression this season.
“From what we saw in the first week where a step up in the pocket meant step up and run or not making those tight-window throws,” Daniels said. “I think that’s what we saw during the year was his natural progression of understanding the offense and being more confident.”
Kelly added, “We want to see that in year two. We want to see that confidence that we saw at the end of the year continue to show itself right through the first game against Florida State.”
ESPN Southwest Louisiana’s SEC Media Days coverage is presented by Beal & Hebert.