Best LSU football players: Modern-era Mount Rushmore – From Tyrann Mathieu to Joe Burrow

The best LSU football players, including Joe Burrow and Tyrann Mathieu, help to make up the LSU football modern-era Mount Rushmore.

Fresh off of winning the National Championship, the first under head coach Ed Orgeron, and with quarterback Joe Burrow winning the Heisman Trophy and submitting perhaps the greatest single-season ever by a quarterback, LSU football is riding high right now. And in the modern era, that’s nothing new in Baton Rouge.

Whether it was with Nick Saban at the helm or now Coach O, the LSU Tigers have been a perennial powerhouse that has boasted elite talent on both sides of the ball. Heck, even if every player hasn’t been a superstar in college — such as Odell Beckham Jr. or Jarvis Landry — they’ve gone on to be studs at the professional level.

However, we’re talking about LSU football and that alone right now. More specifically, we’re talking about the four players who deserve to be on the Mount Rushmore for the modern era of the Tigers. But before we get into that elite quartet, let’s take a look at three players who just missed the cut despite tremendous college careers.

Spending only three seasons in Baton Rouge, Josh Reed has the fourth-most career receptions in LSU history (167) and held the single-season record (94) until this past season. Of course, he’s also the career receiving yards leader with 3,001, though he’s only 10th all-time in receiving touchdowns. Still, among a laundry list of big wide receiver names, Reed emerges.

There’s no question that, at his best, Glenn Dorsey made his case to be on the LSU football Mount Rushmore. His 2007 season that saw him win SEC Defensive Player of the year behind 69 total tackles, 7.0 sacks and 12.5 tackles for loss was among the most dominant in defensive linemen history. Had he done it for longer, Dorsey might’ve cracked the top four.

Leonard Fournette dealt with injuries in his LSU career, particularly in his junior season, but that didn’t hold him back from producing at an extremely high level. The running back is fourth all-time in career rushing yards (3,830) and tied for third in career rushing touchdowns (40) for the Tigers and his 1,953 yards and 22 touchdowns in 2015 are the highest single-season totals in school history as well. Had he remained healthy, he’d be a shoo-in for LSU’s Mount Rushmore.