He rushed for a high school career record of 12,124 yards.

A consensus five-star recruit at running back (or athlete, if you prefer), he also ran a reported 11.11 100-meter dash, heady stuff for a 6-foot-3, 240-pound block of muscle.

An early enrollee, the running back joined a crowded backfield prior to the season as fans and media marveled at his physical talent and speculated about his involvement in the offense.

I’m talking, of course, about Alabama’s Derrick Henry, not Leonard Fournette.

For all the hype, Henry commanded all of 28 carries during the 2013 regular season. Then he broke out with nine touches for 161 yards and two touchdowns in the Sugar Bowl against Oklahoma, starting 2014 with another 113 yards and a touchdown against West Virginia.

But Henry’s first four college games went like this.

  1. Two carries, minus-three yards at Virginia Tech.
  2. Zero carries at Texas A&M.
  3. One carry, four yards vs. Colorado State.
  4. Two carries, 18 yards vs. Ole Miss.

Fournette’s preseason hype eclipsed that of Henry, but otherwise he entered the 2014 season with plenty of parallels. He was an early enrollee as a five-star running back recruit with size (6-foot-1, 230 pounds) and speed (a reported 40-yard dash in the 4.4-second range) joining a similarly crowded backfield with seniors Terrence Magee and Kenny Hilliard.

Fournette’s performance against Wisconsin has been dissected, cooked, overanalyzed, eaten and digested again and again, as we knew it would be. That’s the sort of thing that happens when people compare you to Adrian Peterson.

But really, he’s ahead of the curve with his eight carries for 18 yards and five kickoff returns for 117 yards. After all, he was more productive than Magee, the veteran co-starter. And he got valuable opportunities against a ranked opponent. (Henry didn’t log his eighth college carry until the fourth quarter of his fifth game.)

As we saw with super freshman quarterback Brandon Harris (and to an extent with Anthony Jennings), there’s a lot to process for talented, but green, players transitioning to college. Sure, Fournette could’ve taken better angles and used more patience on a few of his handoffs, and he muffed a pitch. But on other carries, Peterson himself wouldn’t have gotten much past the line of scrimmage.

The talk of Fournette potentially winning the Heisman Trophy as a true freshman running back, which some discussed, was silly, though that’s easy to see in hindsight. Projecting him to finish among the Top 5 in the SEC in rushing yards seems mighty presumptuous, though I saw that prognostication on more than one respected website.

Fournette probably will outdo Henry’s freshman season by the end of September. But maybe it’s time we lowered our expectations for Fournette to something far more reasonable. For that, we need to turn to a reasonable and grounded man. Les Miles, come on down!

“I liked Leonard Fournette’s contributions,” Miles told reporters after the game. “He did just what we asked him to do, ran hard, returned a couple kicks.”

LSU needs Fournette to harness some of his bull in a China cabinet eagerness, which he will. There’s a good chance Fournette will end the season as the team’s leading rusher, or at least the running back getting the most carries every game by the end of the year.

But Fournette isn’t Todd Gurley or T.J. Yeldon. Not in 2014, anyway. Tigers fans may have to settle for a running back who starts out OK, becomes good and has the potential to be great.

When will he assume that greatness? It may not be in 2014, and it’s not fair to Fournette to expect it.