The Legend of Joe Burrow: How LSU turned the former Ohio State backup into a certified Tigers legend

This was always how this was going to turn out for the LSU offense because this is who Joe Burrow has always been.

As LSU heads into another monumental matchup against Alabama, the LSU quarterback gives the Tigers their best shot to knock off their boogeyman in almost a decade.

The Joe Burrow story starts in Columbus where he was passed over, first by J.T. Barrett and second by Dwayne Haskins for Ohio State’s starting quarterback job. However, when Burrow got on the field, either in mop-up duty or in the spring game, he didn’t play like a backup.

The reads, accuracy and pocket movement still showed out even wearing the black non-contact jersey. The coaching staff in Columbus, who really might have known all along how good Burrow was, just couldn’t pull the trigger and make him the starter. Haskins would start, win the Big Ten Player of the Year, become a Heisman finalist and be drafted 15th overall in the NFL Draft. It’s hard to fault them for their decision. Burrow, however, didn’t stick around twiddling his thumbs. The Athens, Ohio native packed his bags and transferred to quarterback-needy LSU.

The Bayou Bengals were in desperate need of a quarterback with the inexperienced Myles Brennan not quite ready to start in the hostile SEC. Burrow stepped in as the starter right away. Functioning in LSU’s archaic college offense he looked fine. Just fine. Although LSU won a lot of games (10 and a Fiesta Bowl victory), Burrow put up middling statistics:

2894 yards with a 57.8 percent completion rate for 7.6 yards/attempt to go along with 16 touchdowns and five interceptions.

However, a deeper dive into the film does show us those same traits he showed in the limited action he received as a Buckeye.

When Burrow could throw in rhythm, he was poised and accurate. The problem was there wasn’t a lot of opportunities to throw in rhythm. LSU, as it has over many years, ran the football a lot. This leads to Burrow having to complete passes in a lot of high leverage situations. Either the defense could roam in the back end and play coverage or send exotic pressures. On these passing downs, LSU played their cards extremely close to the vest. They protected with seven players often meaning only three receivers of the five eligibles were available for the quarterback. This is how LSU operated. Under center runs, full slide protections, huddles. That trifecta led LSU to exactly zero SEC West titles since the clock struck midnight on the magical season of 2011.

This isn’t to say Burrow was this otherworldly quarterback held back by the demons of an outdated brand of football. He wasn’t perfect. He made his share of mistakes.

For example, LSU ran this triple slant concept as their primary quick game yardage gainer in 2018 so Burrow was well versed in it. On this play, once No. 23 on Georgia sticks inside with tight end Foster Moreau, Burrow’s read goes to the slotback, Derrick Dillon. With the Georgia slot defender giving a lot of cushion, Dillon wins easily inside and that’s where the ball should go. Instead, Burrow throws a contested ball to his 3rd read and is almost intercepted.

Here’s another bad read:

And another for good measure:

Not great!

These types of plays popped up a tad more than you might be comfortable with but if you looked closely enough there were enough signs pointing toward what Burrow has become in 2019. Not that I saw any of those signs. I won’t, for the sheer sake of embarrassment, be bringing up my offseason takes on the quarterback but safe to say I did not predict a future so rosy.

Burrow spent the whole offseason being a pseudo-professional quarterback. He went to California to work with top quarterback guru Tom House. He takes all his classes online so he can focus on being an “athlete-student” and spent hours mastering his timing with an exceptionally talented group of receivers.

He also inherited Joe Brady. The former Penn State assistant had been working for the New Orleans Saints when Coach Ed Orgeron caught a liking to him while the LSU staff went to the Saints facility to discuss trade secrets. Coach O would end up paying a lot of money to bring him to Baton Rouge and make him the passing game coordinator and receivers coach has been a well known read-between-lines title for “Offensive Coordinator”

Brady brought with him some professional-level running and passing concepts and fit them into a system as “college” as they come. Done were the days of everybody on the LSU roster blocking on a third-down pass play. Done were the days where LSU only passed on third down. Done was any play run under center.

To say the changes worked would be the understatement of the century. In seven games, Burrow is on pace to smash the LSU single-season passing record. He’s already less than 100 yards from breaking his own passing yardage marker from 2018. He could very well make a push for the SEC record as well. There’s a good chance he ends up finishing his career as the second-leading pass in school history — in only two years. LSU is throwing for 377 yards per game, good enough for 2nd in the country, behind the last true Air Raid team (Wazzu) and in front of the last true Run n’ Shoot team (Hawaii). That’s beyond impressive. Burrow is third nationally in yards per attempt (10.8) and first in completion percentage (78.8).

Burrow’s evolution and the LSU offense’s transformation have put the Tigers back into National Championship contention while the quarterback vies for the school’s second Heisman trophy. We’re not just talking about a great season for an LSU quarterback or even a great season for an SEC quarterback. In eight games Burrow has put himself in the rarefied air of the greatest college football seasons of all time.

Finding weaknesses in Burrows game is difficult, to say the least. His pocket movement, accuracy and decision making have been almost spotless this whole year. He has about three really bad interception worthy throws in all his 260 passing attempts. One of them he was trying to do too much and fit the ball in a tight window while scrambling, the other was an underthrown fade ball and the last was a slightly late throw to the sideline where the cornerback made a nice play on the ball. That’s really it. That’s the type of season Burrow is having. His stats are not inflated at all by turnover luck.

The numbers are also not inflated by short passes and screens his receivers have been breaking off for big chunks (think Alabama). LSU offense is designed to attack vertically. You can count on one hand how many screen passes, to both receivers and running backs, LSU has run this year. This is probably what makes Burrows season so mind-boggling. LSU does not coddle him. He has to drop back and read the defense on almost every passing play.

“Burrow isn’t racking up fake yards the way some college quarterbacks do,” Pro Football Focus’ Mike Renner wrote. “His 1,735 yards on throws targeted 10-plus yards downfield is the most in the country.”

That style of offense forced Auburn to redesign their entire defense for one game. The other Tigers put seven defensive backs on the field for large portions of the game in a funky 3-1-7 personnel grouping to neutralize the deep and intermediate passing attack. That plan kinda maybe sorta worked for Auburn who held LSU to 23 points.

Of course, looking past the point total we see a quarterback who still threw for 321 yards and completed 76 percent of his passes. It also allowed LSU running backs to run for 158 yards only 30 carries. Defenses, playing their base defense have been absolutely shredded by Burrow (471 yards against Texas and a whopping 87.5 percent completion rate against Florida) and the one defense so far to try to confuse LSU still had the Tigers pull up over 508 net yards against them. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. That’s how special it’s been.

I’ve picked out four plays to breakdown that show different aspects of Burrow’s very well rounded game.

This first one against Texas showed his supremely confident accuracy.

This is a four verts call against man-to-man, one-high coverage. This is a fine coverage Texas has called to match LSU’s offensive concept. With four receivers running vertical and not breaking in any direction, the defenders can stick to their men easier. The defensive team also has a free safety centerfielder to clean up a throw down the middle and deep. All this makes sense on paper but is totally undone by Burrow’s ability to put the ball wherever he wants.

The quarterback is looking at Justin Jefferson in the slot right off the bat while also eyeing the safety. Since the safety never moves to the wide side of the field, Jefferson is Burrow’s target. Now, he has to figure out what type of ball to throw. Anything inside and the defender can make a play. Anything over top and he runs out of the back of the endzone. The only ball here is the back-shoulder seam. Burrow throws it beautifully off one hitch step.

This one against Mississippi State shows off how he’s been able to go through his progressions.

This is a very hot concept in the NCAA right now. You start by giving the quarterback a high/low read on the cornerback to the short side of the field with a corner route. That route, if it’s not thrown, can stretch the safety to that side and create a window over the middle of the field. In a perfect world, you throw the touchdown to the corner route right when you hit the end of the drop. Here Burrow doesn’t panic when the corner route is not open and flips his hips to hit Jefferson on the backside post for a touchdown.

I liked this against Auburn because you see how Auburn’s Cover 2 man scheme (one of the defensive concepts they used to deter LSU from throwing the ball) puts a lot of people in coverage.

Again, no panic from Burrow. Just moves around and hits the open receiver. Once he sees the defenders trailing the two posts routes, he trusts Chase’s defender will also be trailing. Pitch and catch down the field.

Finally, a throw etched already into LSU folklore: the dagger touchdown against Texas to Jefferson.

More than anything else, the movement in the pocket in such a high leverage situation is great. The placement on the ball to hit Jefferson in stride is perfect. He waited, in the heat of the battle, knowing against Texas’ blitz Cover 0 look, he would eventually have Jefferson over the middle. He didn’t want to throw a low percentage fade ball to either of the outside receivers. He knew if he could maneuver long enough, this was going to be a first down.

It’s hard to understate how good Burrow has been so far this season. His play has rocketed him up the Heisman leaderboards, the NCAA record books and NFL pundits’ mock drafts. He has done what no other LSU quarterback has ever done in terms of passing the football but this weekend he’ll have to do what no LSU quarterback has done in eight years: beat Alabama. If he does, it will cement his status in Baton Rouge mythology forever.

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