The good news is Georgia State is deep at running back. The bad news is Georgia State is deep at running back.
The Panthers have three healthy backs fighting for playing time, and Jonathan Jean-Bart, the team’s leading returning rusher (269 yards) started preseason camp well before being sidelined by an ankle injury, could soon return.
In his absence, as well as the absence of the injured Gerald Howse (broken hand), three players are battling to become the starter for the Aug. 27 season opener against Abilene Christian at the Georgia Dome.
Senior Duvall Smith had the best spring of the running backs and after a slow start to preseason camp seems to be gaining steam. Sophomore Kyler Neal, who rushed for 96 yards last season, entered camp as No. 1 and is starting to show his usefulness in short-yardage situations. Freshman Krysten Hammon is providing a change of pace with his speed.
Whoever starts shouldn’t attach a lot of significance to it, nor should he expect to keep the job for long in in Georgia State’s by-committee approach.
“It’s competition every single day,” position coach Brock Lough said. “Guys get in, they can be first one day and go all the way back to fourth or fifth the next.”
The disadvantage is that there aren’t a lot of reps for each, and even those reps are limited because the Panthers use only one running back in almost all of their sets.
Still, Lough sees that as a positive. “The reps mean more because people are competing harder,” he said.
Smith, Neal and Hammon are taking advantage of those reps.
Smith, a senior who had only three carries in the previous three seasons, was the star of Saturday’s scrimmage with 102 yards on nine carries. The offense struggled until he broke off a 47-yard run halfway through the scrimmage. Smith said he just wants to go hard on every run and give the coaches reasons to trust him.
“He’s not just working harder, he’s working smarter,” Lough said. “He’s doing a lot of good things.”
Neal had one of the highlights in last week’s scrimmage when he lowered his shoulder inside the 15-yard line and bent a would-be tackler backward before putting him on his back.
Hammon’s speed is something the team hasn’t had in the backfield. His only blemish last week was a lost fumble.
One may not seem like a big deal, but Neal and Jean-Bart had issues holding onto the ball in the season’s final few games, and it’s a mistake the Panthers can’t make because their margin for error between winning and losing is very small.
Lough has incorporated a drill that the players use before during and after practice in which they hold the ball high and tight against their shoulder. Should they fumble, one of the punishment drills involves the players holding the football with one hand while performing a push up with the other. After each push, they must switch the ball to the other hand and do it again.
When Jean-Bart and Howse return expect the competition to become more intense.
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