By KACE KIEISCHNICK, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter
LSU football coach Lane Kiffin will hope to revive a once-feared rushing attack in Baton Rouge in 2026.
The first-year Tigers coach inherits last season’s leading ball carriers in junior Caden Durham and sophomore Harlem Berry, and he welcomes transfers Dilin Jones, Rod Gainey Jr., Raycine Guillory Jr., and Stacy Gage.
The LSU run game disappeared under former head coach Brian Kelly. The Tigers finished at the bottom of the Southeastern Conference in each of the last two seasons with 1,352 rush yards and 10 touchdowns last season and 1,513 yards and 15 touchdowns in 2024.
LSU was second in the conference with 2,659 rushing yards and 34 scores in 2023, but 1,134 of those yards came from Heisman winning quarterback Jayden Daniels. He also accounted for 10 running touchdowns.
To find a Tigers running back to eclipse 1,000 yards in a season, you need to go all the way back to the 2021 season when Tyrion Davis-Price just barely reached the mark with 1,003. The rushing attack wasn’t exactly feared, though, as LSU finished 6-6 that season and lost to Kansas State in the Texas Bowl, 42-20.
The last time a running back-led rushing attack was significant at LSU was in the national championship season of 2019-20 when Clyde Edwards-Helaire gained 1,414 yards on 215 carries and scored 16 rushing touchdowns. He also caught 55 passes for 453 yards.
Kiffin and offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. commanded an Ole Miss offense that never finished outside the top six of the SEC from 2020-25. They and new LSU running back coach Kevin Smith, also formerly of Ole Miss, have recruited and developed backs like 2022 SEC Freshman of the Year Quinshon Judkins and 2025 All-American Kewan Lacy.
The trio has cultivated enough talent to likely find the same success at LSU.
“If you can’t run the ball, you got problems, not just offensively, but as a team,” Kiffin said during spring practice. “It’s just a part of your personality, and we’ve always really stressed that. It sets up everything. Everybody knows that sets up throwing the ball and play action, but to me, it sets your team up.”
Caden Durham
Durham (5-foot-9, 200 pounds) led the Tigers with 111 carries for 505 yards and three touchdowns last season. He also caught 16 passes for 91 yards. Durham was poised to break out as one of the nation’s top rushers after earning All-SEC Freshman honors in 2024, but he was hindered by a nagging high ankle sprain suffered in week four against Southeastern Louisiana and a horrific offensive line.
Coming out of Duncanville High School in Duncanville, Texas, Durham was listed as a four-star prospect and ranked as the nation’s No. 8 running back by On3.com. He helped the Panthers win back-to-back Texas 6A Division I state titles and was named offensive MVP of both championship games.
Durham appeared in 12 games and made six starts as a true freshman at LSU. After taking five carries for just four yards in the 2024 season opener against Nicholls, he burst his way into the running back rotation with 11 carries for 98 yards and two touchdowns against South Carolina.
“Caden broke three or four tackles,” Kelly said after the game. “That’s why you’re on scholarship, quite frankly. You got to make some of these guys miss, and you got to run through some tackles. And he just did a really good job of showing himself today and setting a standard of what we need at that running back position.”
Durham went on to be the lead back in the 2024 offense and totaled 753 yards and six TDs in 140 rushes while adding 28 receptions for 260 yards and two scores through the air. He led all freshmen in rushing yards and finished as No. 10 rusher in the SEC.
Durham entered the transfer portal following the hiring of Kiffin and departure of former LSU running back coach and interim head coach Frank Wilson for Ole Miss. There were rumors of a potential running back swap between the two programs where Durham would follow Wilson to the Rebels and Lacy follow Smith to Baton Rouge, but that never materialized.
BREAKING: LSU running back Caden Durham is withdrawing his name from the transfer portal.
— TigerDroppings (@TigerDroppings) January 12, 2026
"Unfinished business."https://t.co/06S0PzsJ2Y pic.twitter.com/lwGWR0ZkFV
After Lacy re-signed with Ole Miss, Durham withdrew his name from the portal and signed on to Kiffin’s new offense.
Despite struggles in last year’s campaign and split carries thanks to an upstart true freshman, Durham still showed his explosive speed and ability to make defenders miss. He is a consistent every-down back that can contribute as a receiver or an effective protector in the passing game.
Harlem Berry
Berry (5-10, 187) enters his sophomore season with aspirations of challenging for the lead back spot. The electric playmaker, at times, was the only bright spot of the Tigers’ 2025 run game. Another breakout true freshman, Berry racked up 491 rush yards and two touchdowns on 102 opportunities and made eight catches for 32 yards.
Berry was a consensus five-star and No. 1 prospect in the state at St. Martin’s Episcopal School in Metairie. On3 listed him as the top running back in the 2025 class after starting four years with the Saints. Berry ran for over 2,000 yards in all four of his high school seasons. As a senior, he ran for 2,178 yards and 41 TDs on over 12 yards per carry and caught 20 passes for 340 yards and 4 touchdowns.
He was named Gatorade’s Louisiana Player of the Year in 2024 and was a three-time first-team 1A All-State selection (2021, 2022, 2023). Berry also ran high school track and won 2022 Louisiana 1A state titles in the 100-meter (10.98 seconds) and 200-meter (22.68 seconds) dashes.
Kelly expected Berry to have an immediate impact.
“He’s very smooth, elite speed, catches the ball well, but there is a transitiono college,” Kelly said during 2025 spring practice. “He’s getting used to it. It’s a process, but we like him. We think he’s going to have to play for us this year.”
And play he did.
Berry’s undeniable talent and blazing speed gave the Tigers coaching staff no other choice but to put him on the field as he grew more comfortable in the offense. Durham’s injury certainly helped his case for playing time, but Berry started the second half of the season and took 75 carries for 335 yards in those six games. He finished third among SEC freshmen in rush yards.
Wilson said the true freshman developed as the season went on.
“He’s evolved into being more than just a runner, a complete back that can play first, second, third down situations, even short yardage and goal line because he has a better understanding holistically of what we’re trying to accomplish,” said Wilson after a November practice. “I just think he’s a better overall player than he was when he arrived on campus.”
Now, he’ll be able to put that improved understanding and skillset to work in a brand new offense. Berry said he could already notice a difference in the offense during spring camp.
“I was watching how fast they were moving our defense,” Berry said. “Just seeing that, how tired they can get a defense, is something I was excited to see.”
And there is not a tired defender in the SEC who can contain Harlem Berry.
Dilin Jones
Jones (5-11, 211) arrives at LSU as a redshirt sophomore from Wisconsin. His 2024 season was cut short by a season-ending turf-toe injury suffered against Ohio State on Oct. 18. Prior to the injury, Jones led the Badgers with 300 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 75 carries.
Jones was a prep four-star at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Laurel, Maryland. ESPN ranked him as the No. 6 high school running back in the country, ahead of Durham. Jones rushed for over 2,100 yards and 32 TDs in final two seasons, and he was two-time Washington Catholic Athletic Conference Player of the Year.
He red-shirted his first year with the Badgers, appearing in just three games and gaining 88 yards on 16 rushes. Jones won an off-season position battle to earn the starting tailback spot for Wisconsin last season.
“He is definitely one of those guys that every single day is like game day. He practices that way,” Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell said of Jones during preseason camp in 2025. “He has another little competitive edge, nature, that makes a lot of those guys around him better.”
Jones has brought that to LSU.
Jones was ranked as the No. 74 transfer running back by 247sports, but he has already begun to outperform that billing. Kiffin identified him as a player to watch this season on former LSU star Tyrann Mathieu’s “In the Bayou” podcast last month.
“Really good feet and body control and a really smooth runner,” Kiffin said. “There’s a lot of names they already know about, but I think Dilin has got a real chance.”
Jones took more and more reps with the first team as spring practice went on and is looking like he may turn the dynamic duo of Durham and Berry into a three-headed monster. He is certainly the biggest of the three, and at the very least will be an excellent compliment between the tackles for an LSU team that has lacked a traditional power back.
Rod Gainey Jr.
Gainey (5-9, 183) arrives at LSU as a redshirt sophomore from Charlotte. He led a forgotten 49ers run game with 74 rushes for 260 yards and one TD and caught 16 passes for 44 yards. Rated three-stars out of Tampa Bay Tech, Gainey rushed for 1,087 yards and 14 touchdowns as a senior and 1,518 yards and 14 touchdowns as a junior. He was ranked No. 151 player in Florida and No. 85 running back in 2024. He entered the transfer portal as an unranked prospect and became the seventh commitment to Kiffin’s transfer class.
Raycine Guillory Jr.
Guillory (5-10, 179) is the biggest unknown of the running back room. The redshirt freshman does not turn 19 until November after reclassifying to enroll at Utah a year early. He saw just one carry for four yards in a week two matchup with Cal Poly last season. A three-star at Aledo High in Aledo, Texas, he received offers from several top programs, including Ole Miss by Kiffin. He ran for 1,236 yards and 17 touchdowns, averaging 8.47 yards per carry as a senior, and caught 10 passes for 175 yards and four scores.
Guillory was the 75th-ranked running back in the transfer portal and was listed No. 812 player overall by 247Sports.
Stacy Gage
Gage (5-10, 206) is another back coming off a season that ended with an injury. The redshirt sophomore had 13 carries for 63 yards and a touchdown in seven games at Central Florida last year. He was sidelined after a lower-body injury against West Virginia that required meniscus surgery.
Coming out of St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Gage was a consensus three-star prospect, but was ranked as high as the No. 21 back in the 2024 class by Rivals. He rushed for 390 yards and six touchdowns as a senior and helped the Raiders to a 14-1 record and a state title. He redshirted as a true freshman, seeing action in three games but recording no rushing statistics. He was unranked in the transfer portal and the last back to join LSU’s 2026 roster.
The LSU running back room features three starting-level tailbacks and a diverse group of young talent. Durham and Berry are the obvious choice for a lethal one-two punch, and Jones will almost certainly be featured in the rotation. But Kiffin promises everyone will have a chance.
“To go in and add people of different ages, different skill sets was really, really critical,” Kiffin said. “That’ll be a very open competition, like everything here. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been here before, how many stars that you were, where you’re from. That’s not how we evaluate. That’s not how we do depth charts.”
Be the first to comment