LSU football: Joe Burrow putting together unprecedented Heisman resume

The LSU Tigers’ daunting schedule has paved the way for Joe Burrow to be the Heisman front-runner and it could make his credentials even more impressive by season’s end.

The plane ticket should already be booked, a suit picked out and, frankly, a display case built in the Charles McClendon Practice Facility for a 13 1/2-inch tall, 25-pound new addition.

The Heisman Trophy has been all but claimed by LSU’s Joe Burrow, with the quarterback the runaway favorite behind a resume that, as presently constituted hasn’t been seen in 70 years, and which has the potential to be simply unprecedented.

Let’s repeat for emphasis: Burrow is setting himself up to have credentials no player has equaled in the previous 84 years of Heisman winners.

The Tigers quarterback has now beaten four Top-10 teams, with the Crimson Tide following victories over No. 9 Texas (Sept. 7), No. 7 Florida (Oct. 12), No. 9 Auburn (Oct. 26). While others have had similar opportunities, with Auburn’s Pat Sullivan in 1971 and Texas’ Ricky Williams in 1998 getting four cracks at top-10 opponents, the last player to deliver wins in four such games before the voting and go on to claim the Heisman was Army legend, Doc Blanchard — Mr. Inside to fellow winner Glenn Davis‘ Mr. Outside — in 1945.

Then there’s this: if Georgia, fourth in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, holds up its end of the bargain and meets the Tigers in the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta on Dec. 7, Burrow would go into the final days before we voters must cast our ballots in line for a spot all to his own in Heisman history.

Now technically, 1943 winner Angelo Bertelli, was part of a Notre Dame team with five Top-10 victories, but he only suited up in two of them before he was called into service with the Marine Corps following an Oct. 30 win over No. 3 Navy.

That is the rarefied air Burrow finds himself in following one week of play in November, and, honestly, he may have earned himself a mulligan.

If Johnny Manziel‘s Heisman Moment came in totaling 345 yards of offense against the Crimson Tide in 2012, and Cam Newton sealed his with a comeback over Alabama in 2010 — with 255 yards — Burrow walking out of Tuscaloosa with 457 yards and a streak-busting victory served as much a coronation as you can get before Thanksgiving hits.

Before we go any further, it is worth noting while Burrow has solidified his position, we have seen November collapses before.

Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott was in the driver’s seat at this same point in 2014 behind the strength of three top-10 wins, only to lose at then-No. 5 Alabama on Nov. 15 and wound up eighth in a vote claimed by Oregon’s Marcus Mariota. Similarly, Collin Klein had put Kansas State on his back and pushed it to No. 2 in the rankings by Nov. 10, only to have a loss in the 11th game of the season — a stunner vs. unranked Baylor — spoil a campaign that ended in a third-place behind Manziel.

But beyond LSU’s dominance and a schedule that ahead of the SEC Championship Game has four-win Ole Miss, two-win Arkansas and Texas A&M — which has lost three games to ranked opponents by an average of 13.6 points — remaining, Burrow’s standing is also buoyed by a dwindling list of legitimate contenders.

At the season’s halfway point, it appeared there were only five players who could realistically win: Burrow, Ohio State’s Justin Fields, Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts, Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa and Wisconsin’s Jonathan Taylor, while the Buckeyes’ Chase Young was making some noise as that rare defensive player.

Tagovailoa, along with the loss head-to-head vs. Burrow has missed a game (something no winner has done since Florida State’s Charlie Ward in 1993); Hurts has the numbers in ranking second in FBS with 3,611 total yards, but his team is ranked 10th and currently on the outside looking in at the CFP party (which every winner except Louisville’s Lamar Jackson has taken part in since its inception); and Taylor has mixed good performances with bad, including a mere 52 yards vs. Ohio State. Then there’s Young, who, whether you put any stock in a strictly defensive player ever having a chance — which this voter doesn’t — is out of the running with his suspension.

That leaves Fields.

His team very much in the College Football Playoff hunt and with two ranked opponents in No. 9 Penn State and No. 15 Michigan remaining (and a likely showdown with No. 8 Minnesota for the Big Ten crown), the Buckeyes quarterback is the only logical challenger to Burrow. That said, Fields is on pace — even with a conference championship game appearance — for a mere 3,186 total yards to go with 49 touchdowns, the yardage a red flag as it’s over 1,400 below the average for Heisman-winning passers this decade.

LSU has had just one quarterback finish in the top four in voting — Bert Jones in 1972 — and has never had a passer reach New York as a finalist.

At a minimum, Burrow is going to overcome both of those distinctions and he may have given us a reality where there are only two storylines worth watching in this Heisman race: who finishes second, and just how big the Tigers quarterback’s margin of victory is going to be.

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