It’s roughly a five-hour drive from southeast Louisiana to Starkville, Miss., but the road has been much longer for Mississippi State senior running back Christian Ducré.He has been chased all across the South as a member of college football’s only homeless football team. He’s suffered the loss of his home and his degree program. Now, four years removed from the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina, Ducré faces a reunion of sorts as his Bulldogs host LSU on Saturday.”People say Katrina built character,” said Clark Hershey, Fontainebleau High School’s offensive coordinator and Ducré’s former running backs coach. “Katrina exposed character, and we have a lot of high character kids. Christian was one of those kids you could really rely on.”The journey started in New Orleans at Tulane, where Ducré decided to play college football. His father Brad lettered for the Green Wave as a running back from 1991-1994, and his family, in nearby LaCombe, La., would be able to see him play.But things didn’t turn out that way.Tulane evacuated to Jackson, Miss., the day before Katrina’s landfall. They expected to return to campus soon, but the team didn’t make it back at all.The team moved to Southern Methodist University in Dallas during the subsequent week before settling in at Louisiana Tech for the remainder of the fall.The Green Wave didn’t play a single game at home in the Katrina season. As a redshirt, Ducré didn’t play a single snap.”It was horrible what happened to him,” said Larry Favre, Ducré’s high school coach at Fontainebleau. “Right when he’s learning what it’s like to be away from home, what it’s like to be a college student, he’s forced to go to Ruston. They were a school without a home.”It was a stark contrast to his days as a Fontainebleau Bulldog. Ducré rushed for 1,202 yards and 13 touchdowns in his senior season with Fontainebleau. He earned a variety of all-state and all-district honors. Combined with then-teammate and former LSU fullback Steven Korte, Ducré headlined a devastating ground game that helped the Bulldogs to the Class 5A state semifinals.”It was incredible to see,” Hershey said. “Very few times in your coaching career do you get to see athletes like that.”Two years after Ducré fell short of the Superdome in high school, it happened again. Tulane cut his academic major in an effort to stay afloat financially, throwing his future back into question.The NCAA offered students the opportunity to transfer without losing a year of eligibility. Ducré took it.Ducré arrived at Mississippi State for the 2006 season, though he wasn’t offered a scholarship there coming from high school.It was Favre who helped his former star along the way to Starkville.”I had some contacts up at MSU, and I had a large role to play in getting him up there,” Favre said. “We were extremely close when he played for me, so I’m very proud of that.”Ducré’s mother, Alisha Dorsey Lee, sends Favre her son’s press clippings. Favre currently serves as St. Tammany Parish’s director of athletics, but he never misses an MSU game on TV, and he’s managed to free up his weekend to be able to go to the Bulldogs’ Nov. 14 game against No. 3 Alabama.”I tell my players our relationship isn’t for four years — it’s for life,” Favre said. Upheaval followed Ducré again at the end of 2008, but this wasn’t the bad kind. Mississippi State hired Florida offensive coordinator Dan Mullen as its new head coach. Mullen brought his popular spread option offense with him — a vastly different scheme from the power offenses of Ducré’s high school and college careers. But the transition has been a smooth one so far.”If you watch him, he is a guy that works hard in whatever you ask him to do, whether block, pass or run,” Mullen said in a preseason press conference. “I’ve been very impressed with what he’s done so far and because of that he will have a valuable role in our offense this season.”Those words have proven truthful thus far. With a logjam of options — including senior feature back Anthony Dixon — to choose from, Mullen is finding spots for Ducré on special teams and in two-back sets. He’s rushed for 100 yards on just 19 carries — a 5.2 average per carry — and has 13 yards and a touchdown on two receptions.”I talked to him just before the season started, and he’s the happiest I’ve seen him,” Favre said. “The coaching change has done wonders for him. They’ve been very positive toward him, he’s in the best shape of his life, and this is his last chance to play his home school.”—-Contact David Helman at [email protected]