Caden Durham injury update: Brian Kelly provides status of LSU RB ahead of Ole Miss

An ankle injury hampered LSU running back Caden Durham during Saturday’s win against Southeastern Louisiana. Reports indicated that Durham would practice lightly throughout the week leading up to the Ole Miss game, possibly putting his status in question. On Wednesday, head coach Brian Kelly provided the latest on where Durham stands.

“I think we’re going to list him as questionable today,” Kelly said during the SEC Coaches Teleconference. “We’ll see how he progresses through practice each every day. He could go from questionable to out or questionable to probable, depending how he moves through the remainder of practice. We won’t make those assessments until we see the full body of work through practice.”

Kelly is referring to the SEC injury report at the beginning, with its release scheduled for Wednesday night around 7:10 p.m. CT. Durham will be listed as questionable and from there, Kelly was honest about the process. The decision of whether or not Durham plays comes from how he practices moving forward.

Throughout four games, the ground game has been a major struggle for LSU. Recording 467 total rushing yards, only South Carolina holds a worse number. Losing Durham certainly does not help their chances of finding a spark. The Tigers need and want him healthy against Ole Miss.

Especially since the Rebels rank dead last in total rush yards given up in the SEC. Teams are averaging over five yards per carry, also by far the most in the conference.

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Durham possesses the ability to be one of the more explosive players in college football. But to this point, something has not quite clicked yet. Four games in for Durham and 213 yards and two touchdowns show up on the stat sheet.

If there is a positive, the two best performances of the year for Durham came in LSU’s biggest games. He put up 74 yards against Clemson in the season opener and 93 yards a couple of weeks later vs. Florida. Those are numbers Kelly would take in most SEC games, given how explosive the Tigers can be in the pass game.

Flashing back to last season, Durham struggled against Ole Miss. Only 37 yards on 12 attempts in a game LSU wound up winning in overtime. Maybe some revenge might be on Durham’s mind heading into Oxford, first needing to get healthy enough to trot out there.