BATON ROUGE — Now seven weeks into the college football season, websites are beginning to hand out their midseason awards and LSU running back Leonard Fournette is a popular choice for player of the year.
CBSsports.com named Fournette as college football’s midseason player of the year on Tuesday, while ESPN.com has him listed as No. 1 on its list of “Heisman Trophy front-runners”.
ESPN.com also lists Fournette as the No. 1 choice to claim the Doak Walker Award (top running back), while senior offensive tackle Vadal Alexander is one of five players the website lists as a candidate for the Outland Trophy (top interior lineman).
LSU kicker Trent Domingue, who is 7-of-7on field goals this year and scored the game-winning TD last week on a perfectly executed fake field goal against Florida, is listed as one of the top five midseason candidates for the Lou Groza Award (top kicker).
On CBSsports.com, Fournette and Alexander, who has been named the SEC Offensive Lineman twice this season, are listed as first-team midseason All-Americans.
In six games, Fournette leads the country in rushing (1,202), rushing yards per game (200.4) and rushing touchdowns (14). He’s the first player in SEC history to rush for 200 yards or more in three straight games and he’s one of just 11 players in college football history to get to 1,000 rushing yards in the first five games of a season.
Fournette has been named SEC Offensive Player of the Week three times and national player of the week once.
Undefeated and fifth-ranked LSU returns to action on Saturday, hosting 6-1 Western Kentucky for Homecoming at 6 p.m. in Tiger Stadium.