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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2015 20:50:18 GMT -5
I was listening to Jim Rome on the car radio after lunch. It seems there has been talk about Leonard Fournette sitting out his junior season because he doesn't want to risk injury. Bryan, you have a lot more to be concerned about with Fournette than just worrying about whether he should play or not against mighty Eastern Michigan. If he's already worrying about injury before going into the NFL, he might not run as hard in big games. I'll let you know what I think after the Gators get through chomping on him on the 17th. Fournette is NOT worrying about injury. All this crap about him sitting out was started by TALKING HEADS. Leonard Fournette has never said he would take it easy, or sit it out. Maybe you should look up HIS comments about this instead of listening to idiots who never played the game, or were very bad at it. It is those people who fear him on behalf of THEIR teams who want him to lighten up or not play.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2015 21:00:04 GMT -5
Don't shoot the messenger. I'm just telling you what Jim Rome was reporting and discussing on Fournette.
And like I said, did Jim Rome ask #7 what his plans are?
Nope. He theorizes bullshit and gullible people grab it and run with it.
Let's see if he takes it easy on EMU. God help the one who tries to tackle him head on.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2015 21:16:49 GMT -5
He had a guest on during the discussion. It may be bs, but it's not something he just sat there and made up. If there is smoke, there may be a fire. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2015 21:19:31 GMT -5
He had a guest on during the discussion. It may be bs, but it's not something he just sat there and made up. If there is smoke, there may be a fire. The only fire involved in this is the burning grass Fournette leaves in his wake. I understand that fans of EVERY other SEC team want him gone, or ineffectual, but that ain't gonna happen. Not until after his junior year, anyway.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2015 10:50:54 GMT -5
He had a guest on during the discussion. It may be bs, but it's not something he just sat there and made up. If there is smoke, there may be a fire. The only fire involved in this is the burning grass Fournette leaves in his wake. I understand that fans of EVERY other SEC team want him gone, or ineffectual, but that ain't gonna happen. Not until after his junior year, anyway.
What Fournette does is his business. This Gators fan doesn't care.
If you don't agree with Jim Rome and his guest, I suggest you call him. That's up to you.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2015 11:09:12 GMT -5
What Fournette does is his business. This Gators fan doesn't care.
If you don't agree with Jim Rome and his guest, I suggest you call him. That's up to you.
I don't need to call those 2 idiots. I believe what Leonard Fournette said. Who knows him better than himself? Rome apparently needs the publicity to have to spread bullshit like he did.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2015 11:14:28 GMT -5
What Fournette does is his business. This Gators fan doesn't care.
If you don't agree with Jim Rome and his guest, I suggest you call him. That's up to you.
I don't need to call those 2 idiots. I believe what Leonard Fournette said. Who knows him better than himself? Rome apparently needs the publicity to have to spread bullshit like he did.
Some links to what Fournette said himself would be helpful. Otherwise, all I have to go on is what I heard on the Jim Rome radio show yesterday. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2015 11:21:42 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2015 13:07:18 GMT -5
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Post by cbisbig on Oct 2, 2015 13:10:34 GMT -5
He and his brothers are drowning?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2015 15:41:10 GMT -5
He and his brothers are drowning?
If they are, opponents will REALLY be in trouble when THE Tigers dry out. A waterlogged Fournette is stomping everybody right now.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2015 21:46:20 GMT -5
Fournette's Failure
The best he could do tonight was 26 carries for 233 yards and 3 TD's. Of course that mean ol' Les Miles wouldn't let him play as much as he wanted to. He ended up 18 yards shy of setting a new LSU single game rushing record, but again, that mean ol' Les Miles just didn't want to pour it on E. Michigan, who played well and fought valiantly.
Darrel Williams, the #2 running back, only had an average of 8 ypc.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2015 14:37:38 GMT -5
Universal Praise for Leonard Fournette Continues
FTR, I don't write this stuff, nor do I go looking for it. When I look at the ESPN homepage, well, there it is. It's hard NOT to talk about the best RB in the nation and BY FAR the best RB in the SEC.
CBSSports.com --- same thing. Covering the best sells ............
Leonard Fournette: The best kind of different
Ivan Maisel, ESPN Senior Writer
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Forgive me for what I am about to write. In the age of hyperbole, when social and traditional media combine to whip you into a frenzy over what once barely merited a headline, what I am about to say might sound devalued. If everything is the Greatest or the Most or All-Time, then nothing is. A new television show is called "Best Time Ever," which, for most of us, I'm pretty sure would not include a television show.
Leonard Fournette is a running back, an LSU sophomore, and he leads the FBS in rushing and in Heisman votes in October. He has started the season well. With most running backs, that description would suffice.
So forgive me for writing a story that reads like ESPN.com just got T-boned by Buzzfeed. Forgive me for preaching gospel sourced in feel and potential and wonder and three football games. In each of them, Fournette has rushed for more than 200 yards. No one in the history of the Southeastern Conference -- neither Herschel nor Bo nor running backs with last names -- had ever done that.
But what we have on our hands is bigger than one record. I am here to tell you, as sure as purple goes with gold, as sure as cochon and gumbo are the quintessential tailgate food, as sure as the opposite of stop is geaux, that Fournette is different.
It's not just that Fournette is averaging 216 yards per game for the No. 7 Tigers. It's how much better that is than everyone else. Fournette is averaging 56 yards per game more than the second-best guy in the FBS, Tyler Ervin of San Jose State. That's the biggest margin since Barry Sanders rewrote the record book in 1988, when he rushed for 2,628 yards and beat the runner-up by 85 yards per game. No rushing champion since Sanders has won by an average margin greater than 31 yards.
Part of Leonard Fournette's devotion to detail: His hometown barber drives more than an hour each Thursday to shave the running back's head. AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
Let's not get too far into numbers. You don't need numbers to describe why Fournette is different, although Syracuse coach Scott Shafer did a nice job of it. Fournette filleted the Orange for 244 yards in the Tigers' 34-24 victory on Sept. 26. He had another 112 yards called back because of penalties.
Those aren't the numbers Shafer used. Asked what impressed him from the sideline, Shafer said, "His size and ability to move like a 5-10, 200-pound kid. That's it. He moves like a lot of little guys move."
Fournette is no little guy. He is 6-foot-1, 226 pounds, and a guy who moves the way he moves at that size is different.
"He can make them miss," LSU defensive coordinator Kevin Steele said. "Or he can make them wish they hadn't found him."
So forgive me. If faith is belief without evidence, forgive this faith-based initiative. But here goes:
Fournette is different the way that Bryce Harper is different, the way that Jordan Spieth is different, the way that -- I'm going to go ahead and make the leap -- LeBron is different. Harper, the 22-year-old outfielder and National League MVP favorite of the Washington Nationals, Spieth, the 22-year-old PGA Tour Player of the Year, and LeBron James, the best basketball player on the planet, all share the same traits.
Each of those three professional athletes, born with preternatural talent, succeeded anyway. All of them, saddled with oversized expectations in high school, ignored the seductions of attention and money to chase greatness. That is harder to do than it sounds. For one thing, everyone wants to be great, right up until they see the workload it entails. For another, it's easy to settle for being better than everyone else. It's a commitment to decide to be the best you can be.
And that's what makes Fournette different, from the top of his shaved head (a duty performed by his hometown barber, who drives more than an hour to Baton Rouge every Thursday to do the job) to his size-14 cleats. He doesn't settle. He decided a long time ago that he would chase greatness, and the way it looks from here, he is closing the gap.
"We all dream," LSU running backs coach Frank Wilson said. "Here's a kid that had these lofty dreams of winning a Heisman and becoming a pro, and his physical traits and his mindset may allow him to fulfill those."
I know what you're thinking: All this because after five weeks he leads the nation in rushing? I mean, Melvin Gordon of Wisconsin rushed for the second-most yards in FBS history last season and all he brought to mind was ... Melvin Gordon.
Like LeBron, Harper and Spieth, Fournette is appointment television. You learn to plan your snack runs and bathroom breaks when they aren't playing. In his first four games this season, Fournette already has 11 rushes of at least 20 yards, including touchdowns of 75, 62 and 40 yards. He also promises the possibility of those runs against Auburn, when he slung would-be tacklers away as if they were Hollywood extras in a bad college football movie.
"I bounced off him a couple of times," Syracuse safety Rodney Williams said. "I felt like I wrapped up fairly well. ... I thought I had tackled him, and I saw him running 20 more yards."
Asked what it's like to fill a hole that Fournette is approaching, Williams used the F-word: "You just got to come in with no fear."
Fournette is everything LSU coach Les Miles thought he might be when he offered Fournette a scholarship. That was in 2010, the summer before Fournette began his freshman year at St. Augustine High School in New Orleans. In nearly three decades as a college coach, Miles had never done that before.
"You could tell if he ever gained a pound or grew an inch," Miles said of Fournette, "he would be good enough at a very high level."
In his first game at St. Aug -- and as a freshman, he started for the varsity -- Fournette ran for more than 200 yards. Wilson made sure to be there.
"You just sat and watched, and said, 'That's different,'" Wilson said. "He and his dad would come up to our games here at LSU. ... He was very clear what he wanted. 'Coach, I want to be great.'"
LSU wanted Fournette so badly the Tigers chose not to sign a running back in the two classes that preceded him.
Fournette wears No. 7 as a shout-out to the 7th Ward, where his family lived before Hurricane Katrina. When Fournette arrived at St. Aug, he brought with him a reputation off the field, too. He had been tossed out of "five or six" schools, by his estimation, for fighting. He found himself peering into the dark side of a troubled city.
"There's a lot in talent in New Orleans that doesn't get seen or heard of with the violence," Fournette said. "They take different routes. New Orleans is a place. It's home. But it also has -- it's like a bucket of crabs, you know? [People] try to pull you down. You got to try, like I say, stay above water."
And that is how Fournette is most like the other teenage phenoms who achieved adult greatness. He stayed high in the bucket. They believe in corporal punishment at St. Aug, and the sting of the paddle helped Fournette arrive at his decision. The message the paddle delivered struck home.
"It's discipline," Fournette said. "It taught you a lot. Then I was kind of different from all the ninth graders. I had to grow faster than them. I was the No. 1 freshman in America. It still didn't hit me. I was still doing childish things. My father and my coach told me, 'You can't be like everybody else. You're not the same. You're different.'"
Auburn spent much of its game against LSU in pursuit of Fournette, who had 228 yards and three TDs on 19 carries. Derick E. Hingle/USA TODAY Sports
High school is a time when no one wants to be different. The nail that stands up gets pounded, especially by the hammers of social media. Fournette stood up. He saw the trouble his older St. Aug teammate, Tyrann Mathieu, found at LSU. Fournette understood the lesson behind the discipline, and he applied it beyond the four walls of the classroom.
"I could have drunk," he said. "I could have smoked. I could have done all that. ... Don't be basic. Be extraordinary with everything you do."
He wanted to set an example for his little brother, Lanard, now a freshman on the LSU team. He still does. He wanted to succeed. He still does.
"As humble as he is, he's so eager to learn more," Wilson said. "We're not talking about a young man with an ego who thinks he has arrived. He has a thirst of knowledge. He wants to get better. He wants to improve. He's still a constant work in progress. And that's what makes it a good situation."
Fournette had a freshman season that most would consider a success. He started six games and rushed for 1,034 yards and 10 touchdowns. Fournette thinks of it as a learning experience. He decided he needed to be faster. He dropped nine pounds by giving up fried foods.
You have no idea how much discipline that takes. When his mother, Lory, came to Baton Rouge with dinner for Leonard and some of his teammates on the day after the Syracuse game, everyone else got to eat her fried catfish. Leonard's was baked.
He is lighter and he is moving faster. He is more knowledgeable, and Wilson said Fournette is thinking faster. Fournette can read a defense now and understand what cut he must make at the moment he needs to make it.
"You know, the easiest thing would be to say, 'He's like this great player or that great player,'" Miles said. "Or, 'He's got the speed of this guy, but he cuts on a dime like that guy, and he's got ball skills like this guy.' You could put that together very nicely and give him a tremendous compliment, which he is certainly due. But you know what? I think Leonard might define who he is better than anybody."
There is one other way Fournette resembles athletes such as Harper and Spieth and LeBron. Not only does he want to succeed. He is not afraid to succeed.
"It was going to come," he said of this season. "It was just a matter of time."
Fournette has bigger fish to bake. The team has its goals, and there is that childhood dream of a Heisman. Hang on for the ride. For anyone who's a college football fan, watching Fournette is the Best Time Ever.
espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/13817380/lsu-leonard-fournette-lebron-best-kind-different
Leonard Fournette has just started and already we're imagining the end
October 7, 2015 12:53 pm ET
BATON ROUGE, La. -- What's the worst Leonard Fournette has ever been injured? He's happy not only to tell you, but show you.
“I still have it right here,” LSU's superstar tailback says as he his removes his T-shirt. There it is -- a knot that looks like half a golf ball has grown out of the ridge between his neck and right shoulder.
“AC joint, 10th grade,” Fournette says. “It jumped out of place.”
The acromioclavicular joint is where the shoulder meets the collarbone. Whether surgery was needed back then was one issue. Whether it was desired was another.
“I just played with it until the season ended,” Fournette says. “It hurt, though. That's the way it is.”
The long-healed injury basically frames the issue. The season's best and most-discussed college football player has to survive college football.
NFL scouts are practically calling media members, telling them the kid could play in the league right away. Of course, he can't. Being a sophomore, there's the small issue for Fournette of having 1 ½ more seasons remaining as an amateur before he can earn a living professionally. Those are the rules collectively bargained by NFL players with no input from college players.
Along the way, breathless LSU fans can't get enough. Along the way, the bookstore can't sell enough No. 7 jerseys. Along the way, the SEC's brand gets a significant boost from a talent being freely compared to Herschel and Bo.
Along the way, defensive coordinators are also plotting. Their defenses are ready to take their best shots -- not all of them legal.
“We're making our points to officiating crew to take care of our key personnel,” LSU coach Les Miles said in his best Lesspeak.
What's the worst Leonard Fournette has ever been injured?
Watching the sculpted 6-foot-2, 230-pound body turn upfield makes it torturous to even consider the question. A seemingly chosen football player's grip on his sport, his career, his life, is tenuous at best. We all know about the lifespan of a running back. It's being used up as we speak. Along the way, Fournette is holding as tight as he can.
Leonard Fournette is just getting started, and already we're imagining the end. (USATSI) As everyone else leans on Leonard Fournette, he's just trying to hang on.(USATSI)
In almost every way, Fournette is the American ideal. He doesn't smoke or drink -- even soda. While his moves break ankles, his winning smile could melt hardened hearts that scoff at his sugar-sweet story.
One day in July, the Sun Belt Conference coaches were conducting a free football camp for New Orleans youth. An hour in, a strapping kid shows up at a local park out of nowhere and offers to help.
“And it's Leonard Fournette,” Sun Belt commissioner Karl Benson said, “on his own, all by himself.”
The story of St. Leonard didn't start there. And God willing, it won't end there. But the overriding football reality is Fournette having to lay that body of his on the line for a maximum of 26 more college games over the next two college seasons.
That makes his mother Lory consider another, darker reality. That her son doesn't make it through that gauntlet healthy.
“Sometimes you can think things into existence,” she said. “I try not to think about it.”
***
Fournette's shoulders are a good place to start in assessing his present and future. Whether he likes or not, he is shouldering the hopes of a family, a school, a state and beyond.
I think, now, [he's the] face of the nation,” said Cyril Crutchfield, one of Fournette's high school coaches.
All of it demands you have an opinion. Fournette is 20 and could pass for 30. His dominance on the field suggests the college game is almost beneath him, as evidenced by the comparisons with other college greats -- Herschel Walker, Bo Jackson, Adrian Peterson -- whose underclassman talents suggested they were wasting their time as amateurs.
“He is better than I was,” Walker, the SEC's all-time leading rusher, told TMZ.
But again, at what cost? College players have to wait three years from their high school graduation to be eligible for the NFL draft. This isn't child's play. This is big business, in case you weren't aware.
“We are going to cost Fournette millions and millions of dollars,” former LSU coach Gerry DiNardo said. “He's going to take all these hits next year instead of making money taking hits.
“I believe you can discontinue your education and be successful without .”
How good is Leonard Fournette? After rushing for 1,034 yards as a freshman, this year he's within 136 yards of tying the NCAA record for quickest to 1,000 yards (five games). It's clearly within reach. He's rushed for more than 200 yards in three of four games this season, totaling 11 touchdowns. His “worst” output was a 159-yard performance in a season-opening victory at Mississippi State. Assuming a bowl game, the kid is on pace to for rush for well north of 2,300 yards.
At the same age (20), Barry Sanders ran for an NCAA-record 2,628 yards as an Oklahoma State junior in 1988. Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon ran for 2,587 yards last year. Sanders, though, was a junior. Gordon was a 21-year-old senior.
“It's a shame he has to wait another year and a half,” said CBS Sports draft insider Rob Rang. “That's the scary part of it. We've seen talents like Marcus Lattimore and Todd Gurley and Adrian Peterson [get hurt in college]. There is something [wrong]. You can fight for your country at that age but you can't get to the NFL.”
Rang said Fournette would be a top-10 pick in the 2016 draft. NFL.com's Gil Brandt went further. After a Fournette touchdown run was called back against Syracuse, Brandt crowed when he watched film of the sophomore executing three pass-protection blocks and a blitz pick-up block.
“He's a first-round draft choice. He is a Herschel Walker as far as speed is concerned,” Brandt said. “Herschel was more of a straight line runner. This guy has the ability to make quick cuts. … He is one of those rare exceptions that come along every 15 years.
“I don't know if this guy is mentally ready. He's physically ready.”
Fournette's actions don't suggest he's yearning for a three-and-out. When it was foolishly suggested last week he would be wise to sit out 2016 to preserve his body for the draft, Fournette tweeted his loyalty to … keep playing LSU football.
“I accept three years for myself,” he said. “My freshman year here it was crazy. The game was coming too fast. I wouldn't want anybody to come out after their first year in college. You're still 19 and you're going to play against 30 year olds who are out there playing for their family.”
Attorney Alan Millstein is watching from afar. Twelve years ago, he represented Maurice Clarett in the former Ohio State tailback's suit challenging the NFL's draft rules. Clarett was seeking immediate draft eligibility after being suspended for 2003, which would've been his sophomore year. Clarett actually won, but the decision was overturned on appeal.
“I think the rule is definitely ripe for challenge again,” Milstein said. “With all this concussion stuff going on, what is obviously clear to anybody who plays football is that your career opportunities may be cut short.
“If you're ready to play and ready to earn money, you better do that.”
Leonard Fournette is fast becoming a New Orleans folk hero. (USATSI) Leonard Fournette is fast becoming a New Orleans folk hero.
Perhaps, sadly, it's best that we enjoy the moment, for it's entirely possible that we may be witnessing the best of Fournette right now. The NFL doesn't exactly value running backs. Their average career lasts less than four years. An increasingly apparent message became ever-more clear when the Dallas Cowboys allowed 2014 NFL rushing champion DeMarco Murray -- a hoss himself -- to walk to the rival Philadelphia Eagles over cap concerns.
Running backs, even great ones, are replaceable.
In Week 3 of the NFL, eight running backs ran for 100 yards. One -- Seattle's Thomas Rawls -- was an undrafted rookie. Another -- Devonta Freeman -- was a sixth-round choice out of Florida State.
“The thinking is, ‘Why should I take a running back in the first round when I know that I'm going to find a pretty good one in the third or fourth round?'” Brandt said.
Perhaps this philosophy is at least somewhat shifting back to the way it used to be, when running backs were the prize of an NFL franchise. The aforementioned Gurley and Gordon both went in the first round last year, and it's reasonable to assume that a few more backs -- Ohio State's Ezekiel Elliott, for sure -- could be off the board early in 2016.
Still, it's been 20 years since a running back was taken No. 1 overall (Ki-Jana Carter, Penn State). Fournette can't challenge that statistic until the 2017 draft.
“To me, [Fournette's] one of those unbelievable talents that is every bit as good as all the hype you've already heard,” Rang said. “A difference maker is a difference maker regardless of position.”
***
Sitting in the living room of the family's middle-class Slidell, La. home, Lory is oblivious to those outside forces. She simply doesn't dream of NFL riches.
“I never,” she said. “I just don't.”
Lory says her son -- a kinesiology major -- is taking extra classes during intersession. That's a sign of a kid using the university as much as it is using him.
“The Leonard Fournette of the future is hopefully within the sound of my voice,” Miles said. “I would like [him] to be a part of a great three years.”
Mostly, Miles has been a tailback-by-committee guy, not piling up too many carries on any one guy, which has LSU backs more attractive to NFL scouts. But Miles also gets paid to win, and he's leaning on Fourette hard. Going into this week's matchup at South Carolina, his star is averaging a fraction under 25 carries per game. That's the third-most touches among Power Five backs in the top 20.
More burden, then, for those shoulders.
“I want him to cleanly evaluate what's going on and how he's doing and not be cluttered with, ‘Take care of yourself,'” Miles said. “If you build too much caution [and] an injury occurred because there's too much caution, I'd be miserable.”
This from a coach who has sent 49 players to the NFL since 2008, 21 of them underclassmen.
Legendary LSU Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon was watching when that 87-yard Fournette touchdown run vs. Syracuse was called back because of a ticky-tack formation penalty.
“I cried,” Cannon said. “I know how he feels.”
That day the perpetually upbeat Fournette façade cracked momentarily. Later, it was determined that run would've given him the SEC single-game record.
“I said the F-word,” he said. “It happens, though. Everybody gets touchdowns called back. I just wish it wasn't that one.”
Fournette seemingly never runs out of bounds -- a sign of courage and determination, if not exactly sound judgment.
“I'd rather give a lick than take a lick any day,” he said.
Teammate Jamal Adams, a safety, was asked what it's like to take him on one-on-one.
“You gotta have a plan,” Adams said. “The kid's a beast.”
Auburn's Tray Matthews didn't have a plan -- or a clue, for that matter -- when he tried to corral Fournette by the neck on Sept 19. Those broad shoulders violently shook off Matthews and proceeded to drag him like a rag doll. That, more than any long run, might be Fournette's Heisman moment.
“I heard about it a thousand times on Twitter,” Fournette said. “It got so bad it froze my phone.”
The 78-year-old Cannon gladly broke it down: “When he's hitting somebody, he's hitting on the rise. You see some people take people on, the momentum takes them to the ground. Not this kid. The first contact is just the beginning of the process.”
If there is any indicator of a lack of sound judgment, it's that the 20-year old Fournette doesn't give a damn about how the 35-year old Fournette is going to feel.
“It shows his will to try to make plays,” said Tigers receiver Malachi Dupre, “even if a play isn't going to be made.”
***
Character is not an issue. Fournette has loads of it. In fact, it's hard to describe just how tightly LSU and his hometown of New Orleans have wrapped him in their arms. Just south of town, drivers on I-10 are greeted by a video board on the Blue Bayou water park.
Fournette for President
The Tiger-in-chief reciprocates. When he arrived here, veteran teammates teased him by calling the school “Leonard State University.” Fournette smiled, played along and then became a leader in only his second year.
He gave his Syracuse game ball to fullback J.D. Moore, a former walk-on. Fournette, ever the hometown hero, was such a park ball legend in New Orleans that he was actually prohibited from playing youth football because he was too big.
His high school, St. Augustine, is an oasis in the Seventh Ward. The Purple Knights used to walk a block to practice in a park where there was no lined field or goal posts. Players were taught to dive to the ground when shots rang out in the neighborhood.Fournette announced himself by running for 2,500 yards as a 15-year-old high school freshman. Former St. Augustine coach David Johnson (now at Tulane) wasn't surprised. He remembers Fournette going to youth ball all-star games in Atlanta. He'd have to bring his birth certificate.
“Why does he take on guys?” Johnson posed. “It's his mentality. He wants to make a statement.”
According to his mom, Fournette also went through a fighting phase in elementary school.
“We would get a call almost every other day, third through seventh grade,” Lory recalled.
Her son was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. Doctors wanted to put him on Ritalin.
“We didn't agree to him on any medicine,” she said. “It almost makes you like a zombie.”
Today, that one-time wild child proudly says, “Your reputation is everything.” Almost every day he Facetimes with his eight-month-old daughter, Lyric.
“It's a great feeling knowing you have to provide for somebody the rest of your life,” Fournette said.
Ten years ago, Fournette's family was trapped after Hurricane Katrina and spent several days under the I-10 bridge in New Orleans. The family picked its way through dead bodies floating through the flotsam. They were itinerate for a year, displaced in southern Texas.
“Don't take anything for granted,” Fournette said. “Appreciate life. To me, maybe New Orleans needed that. When [Katrina] happened, the killings were higher than Chicago, higher than Iraq.”
That Slidell home is decidedly middle class, and the living room is a shrine to Leonard. It is filled with his trophies and awards -- not to mention a blown-up shot of Fournette in his high school days Photoshopped onto a Madden football cover. It's OK to be proud.
You might say expectations are pretty high for Leonard Fournette. (USATSI) You might say expectations are pretty high for Leonard Fournette.(USATSI)
Lory relaxes on a couch. She can't work anymore after a broken ankle left her with a 12-inch titanium rod and six screws in one leg. On a wall above a big screen in that living room are four words.
Family. Live. Love. Laugh.
In case these things aren't enough, the family has taken out an insurance policy on Fournette. That means a panel of draft experts has already projected the tailback's value for that 2017 draft, 20 months away.
Fournette must be worth it. Major underwriter Keith Lerner will not confirm that he has written a policy for the budding superstar. But consider it was Lerner who wrote policies for quarterbacks Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, the top two picks last year.
At a younger age, Fournette is in that category.
“That's one of my biggest concerns about him,” Rang said. “Les Miles has to ride him to win. Therefore, we could see Fournette get even more punishment than most backs would.
“Leonard Fournette is elite, but can he stay healthy for the next year and a half?”
Once again, the issue is framed. There are a lot of people suddenly depending on Lory's son. The Tigers are 4-0 and ranked No. 7. Across the street from Tiger Stadium, there are at least four racks of No. 7 jerseys in a souvenir store.
Cannon, that Heisman winner, hinted Fournette already may be LSU's best ever. Better than him. Better than Kevin Faulk. Better than all of them.
Lory is asked once again about injuries and having to wait a year and a half for her son to turn professional.
What's the worst Leonard Fournette has ever been injured?
She hopes that question has already been answered by that half a golf ball poking out of her son's shoulder.
At the moment, life is too good to consider the worst.
“I know this is a God-given talent,” she says. “I'm not trying to push that forward into the future.”
www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/dennis-dodd/25330391/leonard-fournette-just-getting-started-and-already-were-imagining-the-endYes, I am laying it on thick, but it is fun to rub the noses of fans of a certain other team in it.
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Woah, this is a default personal text! Edit your profile to change this to what you like!
Godlike Member
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Post by cbisbig on Oct 7, 2015 16:56:07 GMT -5
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Woah, this is a default personal text! Edit your profile to change this to what you like!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2015 15:58:03 GMT -5
Yes, I am laying it on thick, but it is fun to rub the noses of fans of a certain other team in it. Read more: aolcfboutcasts.proboards.com/thread/7554/louisiana-state-tigers?page=3#ixzz3nvCEAct4Until you fall short for the 5th straight year then you will reap what you sow  Speaking of falling short, how do you like bama's drop in the rankings, just like I said would happen? Looks like a LOT of people are not impressed by the bumpkins.
Don't worry about playing LSU. If the tide plays as shitty as they did yesterday next week vs Tx A&M, you'll be 2 down before you GET to LSU. And now there is Tennessee to worry about, too.
Your team is quite ordinary, except for the one bright spot in young Mr. Ridley, who just happens to share the name of a former LSU great. The Ridley kid is really good, but his two RB's, Henry and Drake, are pretty pathetic. Neither one of them could break 100 vs Arkansas, and Drake couldn't even gain 30!! Sad, sad, sad.
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