This is Leonard Fournette’s 3rd and final chance to leave a Bama-LSU legacy

LSU junior running back Leonard Fournette will face Alabama for the third time in his career on Saturday evening from Tiger Stadium, and assuming he’s gone to the NFL next year, it’ll be his last shot at the Tide — a rivalry that has always meant something to him.

“He’s probably the most motivated guy on the team, to be honest with you,” interim LSU coach Ed Orgeron said. “I heard him this week in leadership. He has spoken to the team and will speak to the team again. His want-to to have success against Alabama is as high as any player I’ve seen.”

Let’s take a look at how Fournette has done in the first two meetings against Alabama and see if this year will be any different.

“I could have went to Alabama like everybody else did,” Fournette said after committing to LSU over Bama. “I wanted to be different than everybody. I wanted to earn it myself. Instead of going to a school that’s so — what can I say? — tremendous at winning championships, why not create a tradition on your own?”

The No. 1 overall prospect from the 2014 recruiting class lived up to the hype as a freshman — eventually.

After rushing for 364 yards and three touchdowns in the Tigers’ first six games behind starter Kenny Hilliard, he was named the starter against Florida. In a 30-27 victory in Gainesville, Fournette rushed for 140 yards and two touchdowns.

In his next two games, he rushed for just 153 yards and a touchdown. Hilliard was named the starter against Alabama, but left the game because of an injury after just three carries for 15 yards.

This was a big moment for Fournette. According to his high school coach, the Alabama game involved one of his biggest goals for the entire season.

“He specifically has a goal for the Alabama game,” the coach continued. “Alabama was the only school mentioned in the list of goals.”

Reasons aren’t as important as this reality: Fournette set three personal goals for one of the most anticipated true freshman seasons in LSU history and one of them included Alabama.

“That is,” Crutchfield said, “the rivalry.”

In Hilliard’s absence, Fournette would rush for just 71 yards on 21 carries with no scores. He’d also meet a fellow former five-star recruit, Alabama’s Reuben Foster:

The Alabama defense held the Tigers to a single touchdown on the night, one that came in the first quarter. Alabama would win it in OT, 20-13.

Fournette finished the year with two straight 140-yard games and thus cracked 1,000 yards as a true freshman, setting up Heisman hype for 2015.

Fournette’s start was nothing short of unbelievable. His pure numbers were incredible through the Tigers’ first seven games, in which he rushed for 1,352 yards and 15 touchdowns. Oh, and he was averaging nine yards per carry, too.

The dude was a human highlight reel. There was this ridiculousness against Auburn:

And he was doing this type of nastiness against Mississippi State:

Then came the Alabama game.

What the Crimson Tide’s defense did was nothing short of remarkable. It held Fournette to 31 yards on 19 carries. His previous season-low rushing mark? 150 yards against Western Kentucky.

The frightening part: Alabama made it look so incredibly easy to stop him. Bud Elliott had more on this phenomena after the game:

In the 16 plays examined (yes, LSU only had 45 offensive snaps), Alabama brought an extra defender into the box just six times and never brought two extra.

Alabama did not gamble or sell out to stop LSU’s run. It did not invite LSU to throw. It did not outnumber LSU at the point of attack, but outmuscled a very good LSU line. Plays like the one below were common. Here, all but one LSU blocker was pushed into the backfield:

It’s also worth noting that LSU was without its starting tight end and fullback, and those reserves were whipped worse than the offensive line.

LSU fans are asking why the Tigers didn’t make adjustments and throw the football, but throwing into these looks would have likely yielded even worse results. LSU did not have a numbers advantage in the passing game.

The idea that Alabama loaded the box all night and that LSU failed to adjust is false.

Just like the year before, he’d take a big hit in a loss.

The Heisman race was flipped, as Bama running back Derrick Henry took Fournette’s spot and never looked back. Fournette didn’t even make it to New York as a finalist, but still led the country in rushing yards per game.

The junior missed three games this season because of a nagging ankle injury he suffered at the start of the season. However, he made his return against Ole Miss two weeks ago and picked up right where he left off, setting a school rushing record with 284 yards on 16 carries.

The key for No. 13 LSU and Fournette this time around against No. 1 Alabama just might be letting him spread out more, rather than having him run straight ahead — especially since he’s not 100 percent healthy — as well as using LSU’s other athletes to force Bama to pay attention to more threats.

Former LSU defensive lineman and current ESPN analyst Marcus Spears addressed this earlier this week while discussing the changes that the Tigers have implemented offensively since Orgeron replaced Les Miles.

“I like the changes because they’re using guys more,” he said. “Ability-wise, it’s better. Throwing Leonard Fournette in the flat, getting him in the secondary without having to deal with the defensive line, that’s a big deal. We saw what he did to the guy from Ole Miss” after he caught a pass.

“You want him in the secondary,” Spears said. “So if you can’t run it to get him in the secondary, throw it to him.”

Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban also addressed some of these offensive changes earlier this week.

“They have a really good play-action pass game that goes with them and some really good skill guys that can make big plays, and the quarterback has done a nice job for them,” Saban said, via SEC Country. “This is a very challenging team based on the balance that they create and what they do, and they probably play a little more two tights and two wides, which is a good thing for them because it features the players that they have.”

“I haven’t really seen a guy dominate a game like he did that [Ole Miss] game for a long time,” Saban continued. “We have a tremendous amount of respect for him, and he looks as good as ever and maybe even better.”