This is “The Year of the Running Back” in Louisiana.
The crop of senior tailbacks in the state is unprecedented in its depth, starting at the top with the country’s best in LSU commit Harlem Berry.
Top quarterbacks in Louisiana high school football
Keep reading to learn more about the senior backs and a couple of juniors as SBLive Louisiana now presents the top running backs to watch for in the 2024 season.
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Top 2025 Louisiana high school football recruits
Measurables: 6-0, 220
Ford ran for 1,836 yards on 174 carries with 19 TDs in the regular season alone for the Tigers, who won five more games to claim the Division II non-select state title. Ranked as a four-star, the No. 5 player in Louisiana and No. 14 running back by Rivals. Will run against some of the state’s best programs in non-district games vs. Edna Karr and Zachary.
As a sophomore, helped OHS to its first district title since 1994. That year against Beau Chene, he set a school record with a nine-carry, 317-yard, four-TD performance.
Opelousas 2025 RB D’Shaun Ford building momentum off team’s surprising state championship run
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Measurables: 6-0, 200
The University of Texas commit is ranked by On3 as a four-star, the No. 4 player in Louisiana, No. 10 running back and overall No. 162 player. Rushed for 1,600 yards on 192 carries with 21 TDs for a 14-0 team that won the Division III select state title.
Named to The Shreveport Bossier Advocate’s preseason Tremendous 13. Older brother John Simon IV is a receiver at Louisiana Tech. Father John Simon coached collegiately.
Measurables: 5-10, 182
LSU commit is ranked five stars, the No. 1 player in Louisiana, the No. 1 RB and overall No. 17 player by On3. Rushed for 2,080 yards and 37 TDs as a junior for a Division IV select quarterfinal team. Added 20 catches for 401 yards and seven TDs.
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Also placed second in the 200-meter dash at the Class 1A outdoor state track meet. Has rushed for 2,000 yards all three years. Named the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Outstanding Amateur Male Athlete in the New Orleans metro area for 2023-24.
Measurables: 5-11, 185
LSU commit is ranked four stars, the No. 4 player in Louisiana, No. 5 RB and overall No. 151 player by 247Sports. Rated four stars and a top 10 in-state player by all four major recruiting sites.
Totaled 1,729 yards and 26 TDs for a No. 13 seed that blanked No. 4 Brother Martin, 23-0, in the regionals before falling, 40-34, to Edna Karr in the quarterfinals. Has 4.48 speed in the 40-yard dash and 10.85 in the 100 meters.
Measurables: 5-8, 150
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Liberty University commit is rated four stars and the No. 9 player in Louisiana by ESPN. Ran for 1,648 yards with 19 TDs (averaged 7.6 yards per carry, caught 12 passes for 148 yards and a TD, and averaged 39 yards per kick return with a score). Runs a 10.4 in the 100 meters and 21.48 in the 200.
Measurables: 6-0, 200
University of Michigan commit is rated four stars, the No. 6 player in Louisiana, No. 14 RB and overall No. 186 player by On3. Ran for 171 yards and five TDs in a rivalry game vs. Archbishop Rummel. Gained 174 yards on 19 carries with three TDs and caught two passes for 87 yards in a 57-50 win over Carencro.
Finished with 1,119 yards on 167 carries (missed two games) with 16 TDs.
Measurables: 5-10, 175
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Ranked as the No. 17 player in Louisiana and No. 35 RB by On3, which predicts Duke, California and Ole Miss as the favorites to land Sheppard, who scored six TDs in a quarterfinal upset of Airline. Rushed for 1,847 yards on 270 carries with 36 TDs.
Added 26 receptions for 308 yards and four TDs to ignite the Skippers to their first state semifinal berth since 2015.
Measurables: 6-0, 205
Miami, Penn State, North Carolina and Marshall have offered Harvey, who has an attractive size/speed combination. Scored three TDs in a 42-0 win over South Lafourche. Helped the Griffins to the Division I non-select semifinals.
Won the 100 and 200-meter dashes at the district track meet, posting personal best times of 10.73 and 21.91. Was the Offensive MVP of District 5-5A despite sharing carries with senior backs.
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Measurables: 5-11, 200
Has rushed for 5,130 career yards and 64 TDs. Picked up a Tulane offer in August. As a junior, rushed for 2,425 yards on 295 carries with 32 TDs.
The nephew of former Leesville & LSU tailback Michael Ford is the two-time All-Vernon Parish Offensive MVP. Named to the Warrick Dunn Award watchlist.
Measurables: 5-9, 195
Rushed for 2,911 yards on 198 carries with 47 TDs (14.7 yards per carry). Caught 15 passes for 305 yards and two TDs. Finished with 3,468 all-purpose yards and 320 points, which include 10 two-point conversions. Scored nine touchdowns in a win over Opelousas Catholic.
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Named the No. 11 senior in the Baton Rouge area by JK Lee Sports. Analyst Brandon Howard said this: “Elzy is a well-put-together back who has several DI FCS offers. He knows how to find the hole, has great vision and shows burst.”
Measurables: 5-10, 185
Gordon rushed for 1,918 yards with 23 TDs and tacked on 324 receiving yards and four TDs. Shouldered a heavy load after quarterback Jaboree Antoine was injured early in the season. Topped the 200-yard mark in two games and ran for 196 and three TDs in another.
Analyst Sam Spiegelman wrote about Gordon last year: “Well-equipped back who can run inside and out, through contact, and has enough juice and quickness to beat herds of tacklers around the edge.”
Measurables: 5-9, 185
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Played a traditional fullback role in a flexbone-type offense. Has 4.4 speed in the 40-yard dash and a 4.1 shuttle. Ran for 1,902 yards on 270 carries with 21 TDs for a team that reached the Division II non-select quarterfinals. Was also a Louisiana Football Coaches Association Class 3A first team All-State selection.
Invited to play in the Gridiron Football All-American game. As a sophomore, rushed for 1,008 yards and eight TDs with 334 receiving yards and five scores.
Measurables: 5-9, 180
Ran for 1,560 yards on 316 carries and 28 TDs. Also played defense, recording 38 tackles, a fumble recovery and an interception he returned for a touchdown.
KALB-TV in Alexandria named Burlew its ACA Athlete of the Week in September 2023. “I just play football,” the unassuming senior told KALB’s Mary Margaret Ellison.
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Measurables: 5-10, 170
Rushed for 1,306 yards and 19 TDs on 149 carries. Also had a memorable season in the secondary with 125 tackles, 18 tackles for loss, six interceptions and 13 passes broken up. Set the school record with a 575 lbs. squat in July.
Played on the Tigers’ state champion basketball team this past spring. Goes by “Monk” and has a second nickname: “Big Truck”
Measurables: 6-0, 170
Paved the way for the Tigers to claim the No. 1 seed in Division IV non-select by rushing for 1,509 yards on 198 carries with 16 TDs. Named the District 3-1A Offensive MVP.
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“(Jukadynn) is a speedster who can run and catch,” LHS coach Kevin Magee told Matt Vines of The DeSoto Parish Journal in June. Ran for 156 yards on 22 carries with two TDs in a playoff win over Franklin.
Measurables: 5-10, 175
A jack of all trades on the Class 4A level, Paul returned 12 kicks for 570 yards and six TDs and accumulated 47 tackles on defense with four interceptions (two pick-sixes).
In addition, ran for 1,365 yards and 14 TDs on 146 carries and caught 11 passes for 213 yards and three scores. Squats 445 pounds. Hometown program Southern University offered in May.
Measurables: 5-9, 170
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One of two 1,000-yard rushers for the Griffins, who secured the top seed in Division II non-select and reached the semifinals. Thomas ran for a team-high 1,422 yards on 186 carries with 16 TDs.
Ran for 117 yards and two TDs in a win over Northwood-Shreveport. Has a 4.0 GPA, 4.42 speed in the 40-yard dash and 10.8 in the 100 meters.
Measurables: 5-9, 195
Rushed for 1,282 yards on 155 carries (8.7 yards per carry) with 14 TDs and five 100-yard games for the Division II select runner-up Knights. Tough, sturdy runner with excellent balance who gained a lot of real estate after contact.
Caught 31 passes for 518 yards and six scores. Has a 3.7 GPA.
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Measurables: 5-10, 180
“The Jet” led the Bearcats to the Division I non-select state championship with 1,752 yards on 227 carries with 20 TDs (7.7 yards per carry). Rushed for 249 yards in a win over West Monroe. Squats 405 pounds, and runs a 4.43 in the 40-yard dash.
Teams up with power back Dylone Brooks (5-10, 205, Sr.) for a thunder and lightning type combination.
Measurables: 5-9, 185
Ranked by On3 as the No. 8 player in Louisiana, No. 32 RB and No. 287 overall player. Pittsburgh, UCF, Missouri, Arkansas State, TCU, Indiana, Arkansas and Houston are among his scholarship offers.
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Helped Holy Cross to the No. 1 seed in the Division I select playoffs. Tom Lemming wrote about Smith: “Very talented running back with 4.4 speed, excellent vision, balance and production.”
Measurables: 5-8, 192
Charles has put together consecutive 1,000-yard rushing seasons. “I’m a downhill running back,” he told Jamarcus Fitzpatrick of KATC-3 TV in July. “I don’t do a lot of juking. I’m not the size of (current NFL tailback) Derrick Henry, but that’s who I feel my game is like.”
Measurables: 5-7, 195
Durable back who squats 500 pounds and power cleans 280. “It’s a whole new lifestyle,” he told Louisiana vs. All Y’all of the environment at Central under coach David Simoneaux, who led the Wildcats to the Division I non-select quarterfinals in his first year. Ran for 60 yards on four carries in a win over Capitol.
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Measurables: 5-6, 150
Led the Rebels to a Division IV select runner up finish by carrying 258 times for 2,528 yards (9.8 ypc) with 42 TDs. Added 25 catches for 262 yards and two scores, and also returned a punt for a TD. Has an offer from Kentucky State. Had a career-high 344 yards and four TDs in a 55-14 win at rival St. Martin’s.
“Looking at the season, this was always going to be the big game,” he told Louisiana vs. All Y’all afterward. “(St. Martin’s Harlem Berry) is the No. 1 back. I just had to prove I’m up there, too.”
Measurables: 5-10, 200
Southeastern Louisiana commit. Scored all three of the Tigers’ touchdowns, highlighted by a 90-yard reception, in the spring game vs. Jesuit.
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“He’s a phenomenal back who had a great spring,” Hahnville coach Greg Boyne told Ryan Arena of The Herald Guide. “He’s multi-dimensional and you saw that right there.”
Measurables: 6-0, 190
Nichols has been running free in the Tigers’ backfield for years. As a sophomore, was named one of Aaron’s Aces by KNOE-TV after rushing for 198 yards on 28 carries in a playoff win over East Ascension. Scored on a 1-yard plunge to lift the Tigers to a 30-29 win over Evangel Christian in the 2023 season opener.
Prep Redzone called Nichols “a hard-running mainstay” in its Offseason 3-2-1 Spotlight.
Measurables: 5-9, 195
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Bullish runner is a perfect fit for the Knights’ blue-collar attack. Two-time powerlifting champion who rushed for 1,224 yards on 166 carries and 20 TDs and caught 14 passes for 166 yards and a TD. Has a 4.0 GPA.
“I’m not a vocal person, I lead by example,” he told William Weathers of Geaux Preps in an article titled “Powering Up: Reid Chauvin’s ascent to Episcopal’s No. 1 running back.”
Measurables: 5-11, 205
Asberry, who committed to nearby Southern University, was named to the Warrick Dunn Watch List. A two-time state champion who rushed for 1,278 yards and 19 TDs in 2023. Told John Eads of WAFB-TV that he “gets chills” thinking about playing in the SWAC.
Could go for 2,000 yards with the transfer of Jerome Harris, who rushed for 1,118 yards on 120 carries with 15 TDs as a sophomore, from Southern Lab to another Baton Rouge select school in Dunham.
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Measurables: 5-9, 160
Broke the single season rushing record as a freshman at St. Edmund in Eunice. Led the Lafayette metro area in last year with right around 2,000 yards. Transferred to Northwest, which graduated the area’s second leading rusher in Ja’Vain Reese.
Named the Gridiron Football Player of the Week in September 2022 after rushing for 248 yards on 21 carries with two TDs (and an 83-yard kickoff return).
As unemployment claims are dropping around the nation, initial claims are also falling in Louisiana, according to the latest figures available from the Louisiana Workforce Commission.
Initial unemployment claims dropped more than 30% last week as compared to the previous week, from 1,592 claims to 1,106 claims. The initial filings, a proxy for layoffs, are also 13% lower than what they were the prior year.
The four-week moving average of initial claims, which smooths out short-term fluctuations and highlights longer-term trends, dropped 4.5% to 1,663.
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Despite the drop in initial claims, continued claims in Louisiana grew 15% last week as compared to the previous week. There were 12,384 claims filed for the week ending Dec. 28.
Continued filings were 5% lower than the same period a year ago.
The U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t set a date for when it will hear the challenge against Louisiana’s majority-Black 6th Congressional District as an illegal racial gerrymander, but one invested onlooker has made it clear where she stands on the case in the meantime.
In doing so, she claims Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who’s defending the map, is content to lose the case because it will lead to the removal of the state’s second majority-Black district in Congress.
It’s an allegation Murrill firmly refutes, despite having strenuously defended a prior map in federal court that had just one majority-Black district.
Marina Jenkins, executive director for the National Redistricting Foundation, told reporters last week her group’s “friend of the court” brief (as an outside party to the case) filed Dec. 26 calls on the Supreme Court to keep the current map in place.
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Her organization, which is aligned with the Democratic Party, maintains politics, not race, factored into the crafting of the new 6th District. Specifically, Louisiana’s Republican leaders decided who would be sacrificed among their GOP congressional incumbents, she said.
Also, Jenkins suggested that Murrill’s heart might not be in the task of defending the current map.
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Even though Louisiana wants the court to keep the current map in place, she said Murrill and state Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga are trying to undermine the portion of the federal Voting Rights Act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, Section 2.
“The state of Louisiana has presented outlandish arguments intending to undermine precedent on Section 2 claims, going as far as to say that the state has no obligation to comply with federal law and vote dilution claims,” she said, referencing prior cases when Murrill stood behind maps that watered down Black voting strength.
Murrill firmly rejected Jenkins’ claims Thursday when reached by the Illuminator.
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“We absolutely disagree with everything that she said,” the attorney general said in an email from her spokesman. “We have vigorously defended this map, and we look forward to continuing to defend the map at the United States Supreme Court.”
Louisiana filed its own brief Dec. 19 that explains why it supports the map, Murrill said.
“Our brief urges the Supreme Court to uphold [the map] and provide clarity to states that, like Louisiana, are forced into endless litigation every time a new census requires redistricting,” the attorney general wrote.
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A group of non-Black 6th District voters sued in February to throw out the new version of the 6th District state lawmakers had approved the month before. A federal district judge ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor, and the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeal upheld that decision.
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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal but gave its OK to use its boundaries for the Nov. 5 election. State Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, won his way back to Congress in that race, having previously represented the 4th District from 1993-97. Coincidentally, the federal courts rejected that version of the 4th District because it was deemed an illegal racial gerrymander.
This is not the first time Murrill and the National Redistricting Foundation have crossed paths.
The group, founded in 2017, filed one of its very first lawsuits a year later against Louisiana for its congressional map that had just one majority-Black district out of its six U.S. House seats. The case timed out with the 2020 Census, which required a new round of congressional reapportionment anyway.
The foundation, with the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund leading the way, successfully challenged a congressional map approved in 2022 – one that’s Murrill job to defend as attorney general – with just one majority-Black U.S. House seat in Louisiana. Before that decision could be appealed, its fate became clear in 2023 when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Alabama’s congressional map that also shorted the state’s Black population.
At the time, legal analysts said the case for a second Black congressional district in Louisiana was even stronger than Alabama’s. So when Republican Gov. Jeff Landry took office in January, he and Murrill conceded the court fight over the 2022 map, and state lawmakers then convened for a special session to update the lines for the 6th District.
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When state legislators were given options in January, the NAACP and NRF backed a bill that created a more compact majority-Black seat out of the 5th District anchored in Northeast Louisiana and held by U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, R-Start. The GOP-dominated Legislature instead chose to create a 6th District that stretches awkwardly between Baton Rouge and Northwest Louisiana, largely keeping intact Letlow’s district and the 4th District U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Shreveport, represents
Jenkins was asked why her organization is now defending the new 6th District rather than suing to revive the revised 5th District it originally supported. She said it’s more important for justices to issue a ruling that ends a federal court pattern of “moving the goalposts” on the Voting Rights Act.
“This has been sort of a nonstop attack against enforcement of voting rights, protections for voters of color,” she said.
Republican attorneys general in other states have followed Louisiana’s redistricting court saga closely. Fourteen of them filed an amicus brief in a separate NAACP LDF lawsuit that argues state lawmakers underrepresented Black voters when they redrew districts for the Louisiana House of Representatives.
Murrill defended the Louisiana House map and didn’t join her Republican peers in the brief.
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NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney Jared Evans said at the time the stakes in that case extend well beyond Louisiana.
“They know that if Section 2 is upheld, there are a lot of states that need to have additional … Black districts in their [state] house maps, but also in the congressional map, in the state school board maps and all of the other political boundaries,” Evans said.
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Jenkins highlighted another common thread between Louisiana and other states where Republicans have fought to constrain Black voting strength. The outside law firm Murrill has hired to assist the state in its defense, Holtzman Vogel, also defended what Jenkins called “egregious gerrymanders” in political maps for North Carolina and Ohio.
Drew Ensign, the Holtzman Vogel attorney working on Louisiana’s case, previously worked with Landry and Murrill when they led 24 states in a challenge of the Biden administration’s rejection of Trump-era immigration policy.
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Jenkins argues further that race and politics are intertwined. While drawing district lines based on racial makeup is illegal, she noted lawmakers are allowed to take politics into account — making the existing 6th District legally sound.
She contends that the Republican-led Louisiana Legislature and Landry steered the redistricting process to sacrifice Congressman Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge from the 6th District.
Graves had fallen out of favor with Landry after choosing to back business lobbyist and longtime friend Stephen Waguespack in the 2023 governor’s race. He had also lost support from Louisiana’s hardcore GOP sect who viewed Graves as insufficiently supportive of Rep. Steve Scalise’s failed bid for U.S. House speaker.
“The Legislature had multiple pathways to create a … compliant map, but testimony from legislators showed that the boundaries of the new district were designed with political interests top of mind, specifically the uniquely partisan goal of favoring one incumbent,” Jenkins said, referring to Letlow.
With Republicans now in control of Congress, the outcome of this case isn’t likely to affect whatever momentum the incoming Trump administration builds for at least a couple of years. But if historical election patterns hold true and Democrats attain House control in the 2027 midterms, Louisiana’s two majority-Black seats might be key to that swing.
Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more
Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more
Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more
One Louisiana-based couple celebrated the end of 2024 with an extraordinary delivery — quadruplet daughters.
On November 20, Farrah Larry went in for her cesarean section knowing she was about to give birth to four healthy baby girls. What she and her husband Peyton didn’t know was that their babies would come out as two sets of identical twins.
In conversation with People, the 29-year-old mother spoke about the remarkable birth, which occurred just before Thanksgiving.
“I was laughing and crying at the same time,” she remembered before adding: “My husband was about to pass out.”
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The happy couple, who met in college, found out they were having quadruplets only after they announced they were expecting in May 2024. Because they’d conceived their girls naturally, they were stunned to hear Farrah was carrying more than one baby.
According to the Journal of Family and Reproductive Health, the odds of conceiving quadruplets without any fertility treatment are large, falling somewhere between 1 and 512,000 or 1 and 677,000, not to mention the extremely rare outcome of having two sets of identical twins.
“Clearly God has a plan for these girls because the odds were against us. We’ve just got to trust Him,” Farrah said.
The new parents originally referred to the children as Baby A, B, C, and D, before they were named Paisley, Psalm, Lyric, and Fallyn. Paisley and Psalm are one set of twins, while Lyric and Fallyn are another.
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Peyton and Farrah left their monikers up to fate, picking each name from a random draw out of a brown bag.
“As the baby came out, he would pull out the name and say, ‘Alright, this is Lyric…,’” Farrah explained.
Each baby came out of the womb weighing about four pounds. They were placed in a neonatal intensive care unit for a few weeks before they were allowed to be released from the hospital.
“I’m sleeping maybe three and a half hours a night,” Farrah shared with People. “For diapers, we’re going through seven or eight a day, times four. We’re going through packs quickly. It’s the same for bottles; they eat like eight times a day.”
In 2023, an Alabama-based couple witnessed their own miracle, welcoming quadruplets, two sets of identical twins. The boys — David and Daniel — and the girls — Evelyn and Adeline — were carried by Hannah Carmack and welcomed via cesarean section when she was 27 weeks.
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