Will Leonard Fournette Break Derrick Henry's SEC Rushing Record in 2016?

His name is Jabbar Juluke, and he might have the best job in college football for the 2016 season.

After working as the running backs coach at Louisiana Tech for three years, Juluke was moving on from his home state and had accepted a job for the same position at Texas Tech when LSU gave him a chance to make a U-turn. 

Juluke called his decision to join Les Miles’ staff a “no-brainer” during the introductory press conference on Tuesday. The real bonus, though, is that he’ll get to coach possibly the best running back in the nation, Leonard Fournette.

“I’ve been knowing Leonard since he was five, six years old,” Juluke told the Culotta & The Prince morning show on 104.5 FM in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Monday. 

“As far as football goes, we want to clean up anything he’s done in the past and make him better. That’s going to be a daunting task. The young man does everything extremely well.”

That’s an understatement as Fournette already had the best season of any running back in LSU history, and for most of the 2015 season was so far out in front in the Heisman Trophy race that no one was talking about who might be in second.

Although Alabama’s Derrick Henry ended up winning, Fournette had a much better average of 162.8 yards per game, which made him the national rushing champion. Similar to how the player with the best passer-efficiency rating is the passing champion, it’s not based on who has the most yards.

Consequently, Fournette’s the first Southeastern Conference running back to lead the nation in rushing since 1949, when John Dottley of Ole Miss (1,312 yards) did it. The only other SEC player to finish first in the nation in rushing was Georgia’s Frank Sinkwich, the conference’s first Heisman winner, with 1,103 yards in 1941.

Nevertheless, when considering what Fournette might possibly do for an encore, Henry has to be considered the benchmark, if not the motivation.

Henry ended up with 2,219 rushing yards in 15 games, to set the SEC single-season record that had been previously held by Georgia’s Herschel Walker (1,891 yards, 1981).

Name	Season	Att.	Yards	TDs	Yards/Game
Leonard Fournette	2015	300	1,953	22	162.75
Charles Alexander	1977	311	1,686	17	153.3
Jeremy Hill	2013	203	1,401	16	116.8
Kevin Faulk	1996	248	1,282	13	116.5
Kevin Faulk	1998	229	1,279	12	116.3

Fournette was on pace to set the mark as well despite playing three fewer games thanks to LSU’s opener being cancelled due to inclement weather and Alabama making a successful playoff run en route to the national championship.

Had he been able to play 15 games, Fournette was on pace for 2,442 rushing yards (assuming no setbacks).

Nevertheless, he still set the program’s single-season rushing record (Charles Alexander, 1977, 1,686 yards), still became the first player in SEC history with three straight 200-yard games and was still named a consensus All-American.

Jonathan Bachman/Associated Press

Moreover, he joined Henry, Walker and Bo Jackson as the only players in the SEC to have four 200-yard rushing games in a single season when he ran all over Texas Tech with 212 yards and five touchdowns in the Texas Bowl.

"This is a night that Leonard Fournette would have again and again and again," Miles said during his postgame press conference. "I wouldn't call it routine because he is not a routine runner, he's a special back. But we would expect him to have nights like this. He's fast and strong and capable."

Yet Fournette is now on a record run, and ironically LSU has many of the same teams that Henry faced on its 2016 schedule. Specifically, beginning with Wisconsin in a neutral-site game at Lambeau Field, he’ll see seven of them, everyone else from the SEC West plus Florida.

It’ll be easy to measure his progress and a fair test as the Crimson Tide led the nation in rushing defense with the Badgers fourth, the Razorbacks 12th and the Gators 25th.

Team	Henry's Att.-Yards	Fournette in 2015
Wisconsin	13-147	DNP
Miss. State	22-204	28-159
Auburn	46-271	19-228
Florida	44-189	31-180
Ole Miss	23-127	25-108
Arkansas	27-95	19-91
Texas A&M	32-236	32-159

Granted, replacements have to be found for both offensive tackles, and the offense has to figure out some way to move the ball against Alabama and Arkansas, defenses that were more than speed bumps for Fournette, but one has to like his chances if the running back can stay healthy.

Without factoring in the postseason, to top Henry’s total Fournette needs to average 185.0 yards over 12 games, which he did through a good chunk of the 2015 season. In terms of career records, he needs 1,571 rushing yards to break Kevin Faulk’s school record and 2,272 to surpass Walker’s league mark (5,259).

He’ll probably need the SEC Championship Game and/or a playoff appearance to have a shot at the latter, but Fournette will get a lot of help from teammates, who couldn’t believe he didn’t finish as even a Heisman finalist, and coaches like Juluke.

He’s fresh off coaching Louisiana Tech running back Kenneth Dixon, who finished his career as the NCAA’s all-time leader in touchdowns (87), points scored (522) and games played in which he scored a touchdown (38).

Those may be just about the only records that Fournette doesn’t have a decent shot at breaking this season.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Christopher Walsh is a lead SEC college football writer. Follow Christopher on Twitter @WritingWalsh.