The Case for and Against Leonard Fournette Winning the Heisman Trophy
Is the Heisman Trophy a quarterback-driven award anymore?
Maybe not.
Alabama running back Derrick Henry took home the hardware last year, and LSU's Leonard Fournette will enter the 2016 season as one of the top contenders to win college football's most prestigious individual award.
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The 6'1", 230-pound junior from New Orleans led the nation last year in rushing yards per game with 162.75 and is second behind Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson in early odds for the award, according to Odds Shark.
Can Fournette make it two in a row for SEC running backs?
Let's make the cases for and against the superstar.
The Case for...
Simply put, Fournette is a freak.
With track-star speed, bulldozer power and the best vision in college football, the award for the "most outstanding player" in the game should go to the player who actually is the most outstanding player—regardless of position.
It's hard to argue that Fournette isn't that player.
His 162.75 yards per game on the ground last year were on an offense that provided virtually no threat through the air, and everybody in every stadium he played in knew when he was getting the ball.
It didn't matter.
Fournette averaged an eye-popping 6.74 yards on first and second downs in 2015, converted 35.4 percent of LSU's total first downs and was well on his way to winning the award before the November swoon happened last year and teams devoted their entire defenses to stopping him.
Plus, he's humble and knows that sometimes he needs to take a break and let Derrius Guice and the rest of the running backs take the pressure off.
"It feels great [to be the best], but it’s not just me," he said after the spring game, according to the school. "My teammates are working hard each and every day. There are all these other people on the field sweating, putting in hard work, and challenging themselves. It’s all about the team."
As Pro Football Focus noted during the bowl season, Fournette actually graded higher than Henry and every other running back in the SEC.
Plus, the scare that head coach Les Miles received in late November when he was nearly fired—according to the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report's Stephanie Riegel—should force him to change his offensive philosophy, stretch the field deep a little more often in order to keep defenses honest, and those tight running lanes that Fournette still had success running through last year should be a little bit bigger.
That will keep LSU in the national title picture for three months instead of two, which is always a boost to any Heisman Trophy campaign.
The Case Against...
Come on...this is Les Miles.
The same guy who has been infatuated with dual-threat quarterbacks for the better part of a decade and never seems to use them properly. The same guy who is stubbornly married to an ultra-conservative philosophy. The same guy who tries to win games in 2016 the same way he won them in 2011.
Sometimes even the most talented defenses struggle, which forces offenses to win games 45-42 instead of 17-10. That philosophy will generate video-game numbers for Fournette but won't create a true national title contender in Baton Rouge.
In a day and age of dual-threat quarterbacks blinding Heisman voters, the College Football Playoff dominating the late-season narrative and other talented running backs likely pacing their teams in that narrative, there simply won't be room for Fournette.
Plus, as CFB Film Room noted after the regular season, Fournette didn't exactly punish the best defenses that he faced in 2015.
If Dalvin Cook matches or exceeds his 1,691 rushing yards from a year ago and leads Florida State into the College Football Playoff, will he win it? Maybe, but he'd certainly split some of the running back vote with Fournette and open the door for a quarterback—likely one who's also in the playoff—to win it.
If Stanford's Christian McCaffrey matches, exceeds or even comes close to the single-season all-purpose yardage record that he set last year (3,864), he'll split some of the running back vote as well thanks to a full season of exposure that eluded him in 2015.
There are only so many spots for running backs in New York City. Three ball-carriers have won the award since 2000, and last year was the first time since 2009 that two running backs finished in the top three in Heisman voting.
Running backs getting more love isn't a trend yet. It's the anomaly.
Because of that, Fournette could have a hard time hoisting the trophy in December.
The Verdict
It all depends on the offense and LSU's overall season.
If Miles takes last November's near-firing as a wake-up call and opens things up, Fournette will have even more room to work, put up better numbers and lead his team into the thick of the national title hunt.
If he stays true to his conservative roots, the Tigers will stumble along the way, Fournette will take a backseat in the Heisman Trophy discussion and Miles could be looking for work come December instead of accompanying his superstar to the Big Apple.
The only glimpse we had of LSU this spring was in the spring game. While quarterback Brandon Harris was efficient (11-for-16 for 106 yards), he didn't stretch the field like he needs to in order to take pressure off Fournette.
Because of that, it's hard to trust Miles to do the right thing and open things up at this point in the offseason, which will make Fournette's Heisman campaign more fiction than reality.
Quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Statistics courtesy of cfbstats.com unless otherwise noted. Recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports.
Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and national college football video analyst for Bleacher Report, as well as a host on Bleacher Report Radio on SiriusXM 83. Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.
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