We won’t get to see LSU’s Leonard Fournette play in another college football game, and that’s a bummer.
Is that the right word? It’s difficult to describe the end of Fournette’s college career, and it’s even more difficult to find the right word to encapsulate his career from 2014-16 with the Tigers.
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Fournette announced Friday that he won’t play in the Citrus Bowl against Louisville on Dec. 31. Fournette is entering the 2017 NFL Draft, so that’s it for the No. 1 recruit in the class of 2014, according to 247Sports.
There wasn’t a more Vine-ready player than Fournette the last three seasons. Ask Auburn’s Tray Matthews or Ole Miss’ Deontay Anderson. They can tell you first-hand. The Fournette experience wasn’t good for them, but it was great for college football fans.
Who didn’t enjoy watching the 6-1, 236-pounder run all over the place? It’s too bad Fournette won’t play in a bowl game, because the last two years he put on a show against Notre Dame and Texas Tech.
Fournette stacked up the numbers. He rushed for 3,830 yards and 40 TDs and averaged 6.2 yards per carry — third among FBS backs with at least 600 carries since 2014. Only Florida State’s Dalvin Cook (6.5) and Toledo’s Kareem Hunt (6.4) did better. Fournette rushed for 100 yards or more in 14 of 19 games the last two seasons.
You can’t call him a bust, especially when you stack him up against the other No. 1 recruits in the nation since 2000. He compares favorably with Adrian Peterson (2004), the player he’s compared to most. Peterson finished with 4,045 yards and 41 TDs from 2004-06 with the Sooners and also missed time his junior season.
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Fournette, much like Peterson, showed us everything yet left us expecting even more. Fournette won’t leave LSU with everything.
He didn’t win the Heisman Trophy because he was never a Heisman Trophy finalist. He never won the Doak Walker Award, given annually to the nation's top running back. This, despite the fact that when he was on the field the last two seasons, it was pretty clear he was on the short list of best players in college football.
He didn’t win a SEC title. Fournette leaves without beating Alabama, and that was the game that ended his Heisman Trophy hopes in 2015. He had 57 carries for 145 yards in three games against the Crimson Tide — an average of 2.5 yards per carry. Yet it’s clear that Fournette wasn’t LSU’s problem in trying to catch Alabama.
Fournette is 12th on the all-time SEC rushing list behind legends such as Herschel Walker and Bo Jackson, the running backs whose names were so often evoked every time Fournette provided one of those Vines.
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That’s another layer. Fournette did all this in the social media age, while that younger generation viewed Walker through "SEC Storied" and Jackson through a "30 for 30." Walker and Jackson are forever legends. Fournette provided highlights to the point we almost got desensitized. It’s hard to say if he’ll be put in the same conversation as those guys 25 years from now.
Fournette didn’t have the junior season most expected, but most of that was injury related. You can’t blame him for sitting out if he’s not 100 percent at this point, not when he will undoubtedly have success at the next level as a first-round talent. He might even have the same success on the field as Peterson.
If there’s a lesson from Fournette’s career, then it’s the same one as always. Most of the time, the No. 1 recruit doesn’t guarantee everything.
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Of those top players according to 247Sports, Vince Young (2002) is the last one to play on a national championship game. Young did carry the Longhorns to that national title, and that’s been the burden for everybody else since. Peterson felt that. So did Matt Barkley (2009), Jadeveon Clowney (2011) and Fournette. Najee Harris (2017) — an Alabama commit who could flip to Michigan — is the next man up. It’s not easy to perform as the No. 1 recruit in the country, especially as a running back.
Fournette did that, and he left us wanting more. It’s just those expectations sometimes create the impossible, and that’s what happened with Fournette. It’s a bummer it’s over now, but we know what word describes his career.
Success. Fournette was a success, even if that success will be forever hard to define.
