Missouri's Kendial Lawrence began the 2011 college football season as the Tigers' No. 1 running back. But after struggling in a tough opener against Miami of Ohio, when he was held to just 10 yards on nine carries, Lawrence suffered a broken bone in his leg in practice prior to Missouri's second game of the year against Arizona State.
Lawrence missed the next three games recovering, but the emergence of Henry Josey as the Big 12's most productive running back helped make up for Lawrence's absence. Josey had run for 1,168 yards before sustaining a major knee injury last Saturday against No. 21 Texas, and ranks 10th nationally in rushing yards despite the injury.
But Lawrence, who missed three games due to his injury and tallied more than 50 yards just once as Josey's back-up after his return, picked up where the injured Josey left off against the Longhorns, and ran for a career-high 106 yards and a touchdown to key Mizzou's 17-5 win.
He enters Saturday's game against Texas Tech with 301 rushing yards and three touchdowns on the season, and could add to those totals substantially against a Red Raiders rush defense that ranks 117th of 120 FBS teams.
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