Scooter column: Media fatigue Fournette’s major obstacle

Published 11:32 am Wednesday, October 28, 2015

So someone was asking me if gaining “only 150 yards” against Western Kentucky hurt Leonard Fournette’s Heisman Trophy chances.

I thought my answer was pretty clever: What’s a Western Kentucky?

OK. Not really.

But the short answer is — not at all.

I could have answered — but didn’t because it was before LSU did my homework for me — that since 1960 only one of the 22 running backs to win the last 23 Heismans (Ohio State’s Archie Griffin went back for seconds) made it through their magical year with at least 150 yards in every game.

That was Oklahoma State’s Barry Sanders in 1988, who got “only” 154 against Missouri that year. It was also the first year I had a vote and it didn’t stop me from casting it for him.

In fact, only five of the last 23 running backs winners went the whole season without being held under 100 yards — and two of those, USC’s Marcus Allen in 1981 and Griffin in 1974, were promptly held under 100 in bowl games, conveniently with trophy already in hand.

Herschel Walker, for instance, was held to a mere 20 by Clemson in 1982. Bo Jackson got only 48 against Florida in 1985.

The last SEC running back winner, Alabama’s (now the Saints’) Mark Ingram, managed but 30 in the Tide’s last regular-season game against Auburn.

By, the way, I still credit Reggie Bush with the 2005 Heisman. He got only 51 yards against Washington in 2005.

But enough trivia.

Bottom line: nothing Fournette did or didn’t do to Western Kentucky was going to have much effect on the eventual voting.

That’s just not the way it works.

As for the now, Las Vegas actually makes book on such things, and at the moment Fournette is an overwhelming 1/2 favorite. The closest pursuer, TCU quarterback Trevone Boykin, is a distant 15/2.

But that’s not important now.

Fournette hasn’t won anything yet. He will win or lose the Heisman in November running through the high-profile gauntlet of Alabama-Arkansas-Ole Miss-Texas A&M.

FYI: LSU’s season will also be made or broken then, but that’s not today’s discussion.

Now, if Fournette goes off on Alabama (forget the numbers), just goes off on prime-time national TV — and the Tigers beat the Tide — then the rest of November is probably just a Heisman victory lap, even if the Tigers still have some challenging chores to attend to.

That’s not a prerequisite.

Overall, though, he needs to keep the momentum going through what figures to be a very high-profile November.

At any rate, the days are long gone when it was almost more a contest among school’s sports information directors, who waged creative war to see who could get their man into the brightest spotlight.

Having every game on TV and 24/7 Internet coverage ended those often-entertaining wars, but I still have and cherish my Byron Leftwich bobblehead doll as a reminder, and thank you very much to the Marshall Thundering Herd.

November can be a cruel month for Heisman favorites — not so much on the field as the clutter off it.

It has nothing to do with getting in trouble off the field, which doesn’t seem to be much of a threat to Fournette.

His biggest problem might be that he was declared the odds-on favorite a tad too early, basically since not only single-handedly annihilating Auburn in the season’s second game, but providing a wide array of convenient highlights.

It’s nice to get your name out there early — think of the New Hampshire primary — and it didn’t hurt to follow it up with two more consecutive 200-yard games.

But that might be the problem, namely the timing.

The media, which does the bulk of the voting, hates things cut and dry (and often gets bored).

Fournette’s biggest challenge for the Heisman ­— as much as the Alabama or Ole Miss defenses — might be the dreaded November backlash.

It probably cost Peyton Manning the award his senior season at Tennessee.

After a while, it gets old hearing the same thing.

Just wait. It’s human nature. Media nature, for sure. Regardless of what happens, somebody will get tired of rewriting week after week that Fournette is America’s best player. A fresh rogue will emerge. Player A from Somewhere U. will suddenly be proclaimed the “real” best player, usually with the polite disclaimer “with all due respect to Leonard Fournette.”

Sometimes such movements get legs and pick up steam, sometimes they don’t.

The last thing LSU needs is for America to get Fournette Fatigue.

So it’s probably as good of a reason as any for LSU to hold off on mailing out any bobbleheads of bald 19-year-olds.

It might just jump-start the counter backlash.

Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at shobbs@americanpress.com

LSU running back Leonard Fournette (7) carries for a touchdown against Florida during the first half of an NCAA college football game Oct. 17 in Baton Rouge. (Associated Press)

Bill Feig