LaMichael James has spent the last three years representing everything that is Oregon football. He was in the right place at the right time when LeGarrette Blount threw the punch at Boise State in 2009 (although it feels like it was a decade ago), and he’s been the face of the university ever since. Now that he’s turning pro a year early, Kenjon Barner has the opportunity to become the featured back that he could have been at nearly any other college football program.
There’s a lot of talk lately about whether or not Barner will also jump to the NFL. He’s set to enter his senior season, but the money and pride of playing in the NFL may be too much for Barner to turn his back on. He’s currently not even ranked among the top 50 NFL running back prospects, so even though we’re hearing a lot of rumors regarding what he’s going to decide, you can probably bet that he’ll take stock of his situation and make the right choice.
The right choice, of course, is to return to Oregon and be a part of a national championship team.
One look at Oregon’s 2012 football schedule, and there’s almost no doubt that the Ducks have the best track to the national title game. There’s only one game that should be a problem for Oregon: a road contest against USC, the only Pac-10/12 team that’s beaten the Ducks at least once in the past two years. And even if Oregon loses that game, they’ll likely face the Trojans at the end of the year in the Pac-12 championship game, giving Oregon a shot to defeat what should be a very highly ranked USC team. In other words, the Ducks are the early frontrunners to make it to the national championship.
And, if he returns, Barner will be a huge player in that quest. By now, people in and around the program realize that Oregon could plug any one of their talented running backs into the backfield and pick up massive production. One look at Oregon’s running stats over the past five years would tell you that story. For Barner, then, returning to Oregon will finally give him the touches that he deserves, considering he’s been stuck behind James over the course of the past three seasons.
As a junior in 2011, his most productive season yet, Barner ran a career-high 152 times for 939 yards and 11 touchdowns. He also caught a career-high 17 passes for 184 yards and 3 more scores. Had DeAnthony Thomas not been on the Oregon roster, Barner feasibly could have run for over 1,500 yards and caught upwards of 25 passes.
In 2012, Barner and Thomas will theoretically split touches out of the backfield, and with Oregon thin at the wide receiver position, you can imagine Thomas being used primarily as a receiver, leaving Barner as the featured rusher in Chip Kelly’s run-first spread offense.
That should mean big plays, big yards, and big scores for a player who has never publicly complained about not getting the ball enough, something that few players of Barner’s talent would refrain from doing had they been in the same position as he’s been for three years.
He’s finally due for his touches, and he knows it. If Barner returns for his senior season, he will step right in and give Oregon incredible production, something every person in the program knew he was capable of. It just so happened that LaMichael James and Kenjon Barner arrived at the University of Oregon at the same time. Barner could feasibly be Oregon’s first 2,000 yard rusher, especially when you consider that James rushed for just over 1,800 yards despite facing LSU’s defense and missing two games this past year. Barner will face much less defensively talented squads in 2012 and, if he stays healthy, could break some of James’ single-season records.
While James led Oregon to its first BCS national championship, it might just be his backup over the past three years – Kenjon Barner – who leads Oregon to its first BCS national championship victory.
And he might just break into the top 50 NFL running back prospects in the process.
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