By Justin Renck and Steven Rummage:
In this Sugar Bowl position preview, we compare the Running Backs for the Louisville Cardinals and Florida Gators.
If you missed it, here is our previous position breakdown:
While both teams have many players that have rushing stats for the season, our focus will be on Louisville’s Jeremy Wright and Florida’s Mike Gillislee.
Jeremy Wright
#28 Junior
Hometown: Clermont, FL
5’11 205 lbs.
For most of the season, Jeremy Wright and Senorise Perry split the carries out of the backfield for the Cards. In the 10th game of the season at Syracuse, Perry tore his ACL and was lost for the rest of the season. The Cards lost that game and the next game against UConn, and struggled to ever run the ball at Rutgers. In those 3 games, with Wright as the clear feature back, he only rushed for a total of 89 yards on 48 carries, for an average of 1.9 yards per carry.
During the majority of the season, while the Cards had both backs, Wright had 3 games of over 100 yards rushing. His season high was 114 against North Carolina. His other two were against Kentucky (105) and Temple (100).
Mike Gillislee
#23 Senior
Hometown: Deland, FL
5’11 209 lbs.
Mike Gillislee had a great year for the Gators. He was a 1,000 yard rusher (1,104) and had 10 touchdowns. In 2 of the biggest games of the year, he had great performances. Against LSU, Florida won 14-6, and Gillislee had 146 yards on 34 carries and scored both touchdowns. In the season finale at Florida State, he rushed for 140 yards on 24 carries and another 2 touchdowns in the Gators 37-26 victory.
Game by Game stats
Jeremy Wright
| DATE | OPP | RESULT | ATT | YDS | AVG | LNG | TD | REC | YDS | AVG | TD | |
| 9/2 | UK | W 32-14 | 22 | 105 | 4.8 | 20 | 3 | 2 | 21 | 10.5 | ||
| 9/8 | Mizz St. | W 35-7 | 10 | 43 | 4.3 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 12.0 | ||
| 9/15 | UNC | W 39-34 | 20 | 114 | 5.7 | 21 | 1 | 4 | 26 | 6.5 | ||
| 9/22 | @FIU | W 28-21 | 14 | 43 | 3.1 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 25 | 12.5 | ||
| 9/29 | @So Miss | W 21-17 | 20 | 84 | 4.2 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | ||
| 10/13 | @Pitt | W 45-35 | 13 | 61 | 4.7 | 12 | 1 | 4 | 18 | 4.5 | ||
| 10/20 | USF | W 27-25 | 11 | 27 | 2.5 | 11 | 1 | 3 | 31 | 10.3 | ||
| 10/26 | Cincinnati | W 34-31 (OT) | 18 | 74 | 4.1 | 19 | 1 | 2 | 22 | 11.0 | ||
| 11/3 | Temple | W 45-17 | 10 | 100 | 10.0 | 32 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | ||
| 11/10 | @Syracuse | L 45-26 | 10 | 29 | 2.9 | 11 | 0 | 6 | 38 | 6.3 | ||
| 11/24 | UConn | L 23-20 (3OT) | 16 | 43 | 2.7 | 14 | 0 | 9 | 72 | 8.0 | ||
| 11/29 | @Rutgers | W 20-17 | 22 | 17 | 0.8 | 8 | 0 | 5 | 41 | 8.2 | 1 |
Mike Gillislee
| DATE | OPP | RESULT | ATT | YDS | AVG | LNG | TD | REC | YDS | AVG | TD | |
| 9/1 | BG | W 27-14 | 24 | 148 | 6.2 | 38 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | |
| 9/8 | @TX A&M | W 20-17 | 14 | 83 | 5.9 | 24 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3.0 | 0 | |
| 9/15 | @Tenn | W 37-20 | 18 | 115 | 6.4 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | |
| 9/22 | Kentucky | W 38-0 | 13 | 56 | 4.3 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 11.0 | 0 | |
| 10/6 | LSU | W 14-6 | 34 | 146 | 4.3 | 12 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | |
| 10/13 | @Vandy | W 31-17 | 17 | 67 | 3.9 | 15 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 6.0 | 0 | |
| 10/20 | South Car | W 44-11 | 19 | 37 | 1.9 | 10 | 0 | 1 | -3 | -3.0 | 0 | |
| 10/27 | @Georgia | L 17-9 | 22 | 77 | 3.5 | 16 | 0 | 2 | 40 | 20.0 | 0 | |
| 11/3 | Missouri | W 14-7 | 16 | 68 | 4.3 | 23 | 0 | 1 | 45 | 45.0 | 1 | |
| 11/10 | LA-LAF | W 27-20 | 14 | 45 | 3.2 | 11 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 2.0 | 0 | |
| 11/17 | JAX St. | W 23-0 | 20 | 122 | 6.1 | 46 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 8.0 | 0 | |
| 11/24 | @FSU | W 37-26 | 24 | 140 | 5.8 | 37 | 2 | 2 | 22 | 11.0 | 0 |
Team Rushing stats
Louisville Cardinals
| Rushing Statistics | |||||
| NAME | CAR | YDS | AVG | LONG | TD |
| Jeremy Wright | 186 | 740 | 4.0 | 32 | 9 |
| Senorise Perry | 136 | 705 | 5.2 | 59 (TD) | 11 |
| Corvin Lamb | 11 | 45 | 4.1 | 16 | 1 |
| Teddy Bridgewater | 67 | 43 | 0.6 | 17 | 1 |
| Will Stein | 12 | 8 | 0.7 | 7 | 0 |
| Preston Brown | 1 | 5 | 5.0 | 5 | 0 |
| Damian Copeland | 1 | 3 | 3.0 | 3 | 0 |
| Totals | 426 | 1,525 | 3.6 | 59 | 22 |
Florida Gators
| Rushing Statistics | |||||
| NAME | CAR | YDS | AVG | LONG | TD |
| Mike Gillislee | 235 | 1104 | 4.7 | 46 | 10 |
| Jeff Driskel | 108 | 404 | 3.7 | 70 (TD) | 4 |
| Matt Jones | 49 | 259 | 5.3 | 32 (TD) | 2 |
| Trey Burton | 24 | 166 | 6.9 | 80 (TD) | 2 |
| Omarius Hines | 18 | 148 | 8.2 | 36 (TD) | 2 |
| Solomon Patton | 14 | 140 | 10.0 | 54 | 0 |
| Mack Brown | 25 | 102 | 4.1 | 11 | 0 |
| Chris Johnson | 5 | 35 | 7.0 | 17 | 0 |
| Loucheiz Purifoy | 1 | 8 | 8.0 | 8 | 0 |
| Matt Elam | 1 | 5 | 5.0 | 5 | 0 |
| Andre Debose | 2 | 1 | 0.5 | 8 | 0 |
| Hunter Joyer | 2 | 1 | 0.5 | 1 | 0 |
| Totals | 509 | 2,329 | 4.6 | 80 | 21 |
Jeremy Wright TD run vs UK
Mike Gillislee TD run vs LSU