LSU tailback John Emery, the bright spot in his team’s Week 1 loss to USC, will miss the rest of the season after tearing an ACL in his left knee during practice on Tuesday, according to multiple reports.

This is tough news for both the team and Emery, who tore the cruciate ligament in his right knee last year.

On Sunday evening, he was back in the same form as before his injury, running for 61 yards on 10 attempts and also catching a pass for 10 yards.

A five-star recruit in the 2019 class, Emery originally committed to Georgia before transferring to his home-state school. As a freshman on LSU’s national championship team, he ran for 188 yards and was the team’s second-leading runner with 378 yards in 2020. He then missed the 2021 season for academic reasons and returned in 2022 as the team’s fourth-leading runner with 375 yards. He appeared in seven games last season before getting injured.

Emery was briefly in the transfer portal last season but decided to return to LSU for his sixth season. He was the team’s leading runner in the 27-20 loss to USC, followed by teammate Josh Williams with 33 yards on nine carries.

LSU signed a running back from the 2024 recruiting class, Caden Durham, a top 100 prospect out of Duncanville (Texas) High School. Dunham did not have a single run against USC. Sophomore Kaleb Jackson had five carries for 14 yards.

No. 18 LSU hosts Nicholls, an FCS program, on Saturday and then begins SEC play at South Carolina. Home games against UCLA and South Alabama follow after that before the Tigers resume SEC play with a fairly manageable schedule — No. 6 Ole Miss and No. 4 Alabama are the only future opponents currently ranked, and both are coming to Tiger Stadium.

LSU had expected to rely more on its passing game, led by quarterback Garrett Nussmeier and promising receivers. But a complementary running game will be harder to achieve without Emery.

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(Photo: Kirby Lee / USA Today)