Will he be the man?

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Aug 18, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

If anything about Keiland Williams’ status with the LSU football team and head coach Les Miles has changed, it makes sense that the Tigers ultra-talented running back would know about it.

And Williams — still as gregarious as he’s always been — insists that he hasn’t noticed a climate change with Miles during preseason camp.

“I’ve heard a lot of people say I’m in the doghouse or I’ve fallen out of Coach Miles’ good graces, but nothing has really changed at all,” Williams said. “If something changed, I think I would have noticed. I’m still getting the same reps I always have and I’m running the ball in the same situations.”

“If I’m in trouble, I haven’t heard about it. I didn’t hear anything about being in the doghouse. If I am, it’s still early and maybe I’ve got time to get out before Aug. 30.”

Maybe so, but so far this month, Williams’ name is rarely mentioned early when Miles rattles off the litany of backs being counted on to share the load this season for the Tigers this season — the first of the post Jacob Hester era.

But Miles said Williams is not in any kind of “trouble”.

“There is no doghouse,” Miles said. “We play the best players. The guy that gives this team the best opportunity at victory, that’s who we play. All the rest of them just don’t stay in the doghouse, OK?”

By most standards it’s logical that Williams is the leading candidate to be Hester’s heir apparent.

The former Northside-Lafayette star has produced almost identical numbers each year: 76 carries for 436 yards and five touchdowns in 2006, 70- 478 with six scores last season.

No backup running back in the SEC produced as many yards in as few carries as Williams last season.

Now, with Hester gone to the NFL, it’s common sense to deduce that the player who has been second in carries, rushing yards and rushing TDs for the Tigers each of the last two years would be poised to take over the top job in the backfield.

Not just yet, and the fact that Williams has yet to seize the position by the horns seems to have festered into a sore spot with fans, and perhaps Miles as well.

Asked about the Tigers talented collection of backs at LSU’s annual Media Day on Aug. 8, Miles made it clear that he’s still looking for a leader. He mentioned several other backs and then Williams, almost as an afterthought.