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Fournette’s biggest foe with Crimson Tide is friend he used to follow, Collins
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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — While many of the 10 players on the University of Alabama football team who hail from Louisiana have strong ties with their counterparts at LSU, junior safety Landon Collins goes back a long way with one player in particular, freshman running back Leonard Fournette.
Collins estimated that he was probably 5 when they first met in New Orleans and grew up playing on many of the same teams.
“I was a running back when he was coming up and he wanted my number but he couldn’t get it because I had it,” Collins said. “I won that because I was the older kid. But definitely it was a great experience playing with him and stuff like that. I would love to play with him again.”
Collins wore No. 5 back then, although he’s forgotten why it was so popular at the time. Fournette, who now wears 7 for the Tigers, had to settle for No. 1.
Actually, if Nick Saban had had his way they would have been teammates again with the Crimson Tide.
While 247Sports rated Alabama as having the best signing class this past spring, with the Crimson Tide landing six of the top 16 players in the nation with tackle Cam Robinson (4), defensive end Da’Shawn Hand (5), cornerback Tony Brown (9), cornerback Marlin Humphrey (12), linebacker Rashaan Evans (15), and running back Bo Scarbrough (16, but won’t enroll until January for academic reasons), it had Fournette as the top overall player.
Alabama made a strong run at him and the New Orleans standout even made an official visit, but opted to stay close to home.
LSU has four running backs with 50 carries or more this season, yet Fournette leads the Tigers with 131 attempts for 657 yards and seven touchdowns. He averages 5.0 yards per carry and 73.0 per game
The more alarming statistic with LSU’s offense is the 438 rushing plays, the most in the SEC by 62, compared to 193 passing attempts, or 69.4 percent of its offense. It’s the only team in the league that hasn’t completed 100 passes yet.
“They have a very physical team, and they’re playing physical football right now,” Saban said. “There’s not a lot of trick’em to it. You’ve just got to match and be the same kind of physical team to be able to have a chance to have any kind of success against them.
“Leonard has been really, really productive, not to our surprise. We thought he was that kind of player and he’s certainly proven to be.”
Despite that, Collins has never had to try and tackle his long-time friend, who is listed as 6 foot 1, 230 pounds. Saturday will be the first opportunity when No. 5 Alabama visits Tiger Stadium (8 p.m. ET, CBS).
“Crazy, I mean he’s a big back he runs strong, he runs hard, he runs with a lot of confidence,” said Collins, who is second in team tackles with 54, two behind linebacker Reggie Ragland. “He’s getting better each and every week so it’s definitely going to be good.”
Christopher Walsh has covered Alabama football since 2004 and is the author of 19 books. In his free time, he writes about college football.
