Why Brandon Harris, Not Leonard Fournette, Must Star vs. South Carolina

All LSU running back Leonard Fournette has done over the first four games of the season is lead the nation with 864 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns, become the first SEC running back ever to post three straight 200-yard rushing games and vault himself to the top of virtually every early Heisman ranking.

Not bad, if you like 6'1", 230-pound monsters who have Adrian Peterson's power and Barry Sanders' quickness.

Is LSU a contender in the SEC West, though?

The answer is "no." At least, not until quarterback Brandon Harris can prove that he can stretch the field—or at least provide a reasonable threat that he can stretch the field.

Mike Groll/Associated Press

Through four games, that hasn't happened.

The Tigers rank 124th out of 128 FBS teams in passing offense (95.5 yards per game)—three spots behind Georgia Tech, which runs the triple option. Harris has just six completions of 20 or more yards, which doesn't even register on CFBStats.com's list of players with passing plays of 20 or more yards (it stops at 99th place and players with eight).

As CFBFilmRoom noted on Twitter, Harris hasn't even attempted many passes downfield.

Granted, LSU has played one fewer game than most teams thanks to the cancellation of the season-opener versus McNeese State. Still, the absence of a passing game should be very concerning.

Enter: South Carolina, which doesn't exactly boast a threatening pass defense.

The Gamecocks rank 12th in the SEC in pass defense (218.8 yards per game), has given up 7.2 yards per attempt—next-to-last in the conference—and has given up 11 passing plays of 20 or more yards (12th in the conference). 

Because of that, expect a heavy dose of Harris through the air, as head coach Les Miles said (via: Marcus Rodrigue of The Advocate) in a way that only Miles can.

Not only should that happen, LSU needs it to happen.

The Eastern Michigan game being closer than expected and the McNeese State rainout robbed the Tigers of two chances to fine-tune the passing game. As a result, Harris is still the great unknown in Baton Rouge.

That has to change if LSU is legitimately going to contend for the SEC West title.

We saw last week in Georgia's loss to Alabama that with teams that are one-dimensional by necessity—which both Georgia and LSU are—good defenses can at least slow down great running backs. LSU still has Florida (97.8 YPG) and Alabama (84.0 YPG) on the schedule, which rank first and second in the SEC in rush defense, respectively.

Surprisingly, even Arkansas has had some success in stopping the run (101.6 YPG).

Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

Fournette has been awesome this year, and he will still have success against great run defenses. But he's not going to be a video game cheat code every week, which means Harris has to learn to stretch the field.

The time is now.

With Florida coming to town next week and the road trip to Alabama looming on Nov. 7, there's no time like the present to get right through the air against a South Carolina defense that's ripe for the picking.

If it doesn't, it will be too late and LSU will sputter down the stretch.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Recruiting information is courtesy of 247Sports. Statistics are courtesy of CFBStats.com. 

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.