LSU’s Joe Burrow defied logic, odds to stand on cusp of Heisman runaway

A heavy favorite, LSU Tigers quarterback Joe Burrow will have faced the second-longest odds of any player to win the award since 2009.

Ballots were just delivered to voters’ inboxes on Monday, and, as we’re all aware, it’s just a formality at this point. The chasm between LSU’s Joe Burrow and the rest of the Heisman Trophy field has made sure of that.

The focus has turned from the result itself to just how historic a vote we’re talking about. Can the quarterback make a run at Troy Smith‘s 91.6 percent of possible points set in 2006? Will he take down O.J. Simpson‘s marks of most first-place votes (855)?

(We at least know Burrow won’t sniff Simpson’s record of 2,853 points set back in 1969 — when there were 1,200 voters — even if he’s a unanimous first on all 929 ballots, which would be a possible 2,787 points.)

But the mere fact that we’re even asking those questions, about this candidate, and in this field, may be the most stunning development in this Heisman race.

Think back to the summer’s runup to the season. The last two quarterbacks to lead their teams to national championships — Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa (the Heisman runner-up in 2018) – were the poster boys of 2019. Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts — a household name with the Crimson Tide before his transfer — and Ohio State’s Justin Fields were generating plenty of buzz.

Burrow was, largely, an afterthought.

At +4000 in the preseason, per William Hill, the Tigers quarterback was tied for 11th, his odds more than double that of Texas’ Sam Ehlinger, the quarterback he’d outduel in jump-starting his campaign Sept. 7. The likes of Nebraska’s Adrian Martinez (+1000), Oregon’s Justin Herbert (+1500), Georgia’s Jake Fromm (+1800) and Michigan’s Shea Patterson (+2500), all of whom saw their chances to even get to New York for the ceremony fade away, were better choices according to the folks in the desert than Burrow.

Coming off his first season in Baton Rouge, where he threw for 2,894 yards, 16 touchdowns and nine interceptions, Burrow just wasn’t supposed to be on their level.

While it’s been eye-opening to watch his assault on the SEC record book and a bid to become the first player taken in the NFL draft, it’s a rise that in truth is very much in line with recent Heisman trends.

Going back to 2009, Burrow is tracking toward becoming the seventh winner who was at +2000 or more prior to Week 1 and he’ll be the fourth in five years, joining Derrick Henry, Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray. The only player who was believed to be less of a threat in the summer preceding their win was Johnny Manziel, who wasn’t even on the board until Week 8 in 2012.

The overwhelming message here: betting on the Heisman is a fool’s errand. Matt Leinart (’04) and Marcus Mariota (’14) are the last players who were favorites or on the shortlist of top contenders, who have gone on to actually win the award.

To be fair, Manziel was an unknown commodity in his redshirt freshman-winning season and we knew Burrow – or at least we thought we did – before his pairing with Joe Brady and his overhaul of the Tigers offense with a blend of the RPO and West Coast offense.

Burrow went from 65th in pass efficiency (131.7) in ‘18 to rank second this season in that department (203.0) along with yards (4,366), touchdowns (44) and points responsible for (284) and in the process broke Tim Couch’s 21-year-old SEC yardage and has equaled Drew Lock’s single-season conference mark for TD passes.

Given the production and the expectations, Burrow was criminally overlooked in this race, especially for someone who is in position to make a run at multiple Heisman voting records — but he is from Vegas’ longest shot to win this century.

That would be Lamar Jackson.

Like Burrow with Tagovailoa, the Louisville quarterback entered the 2016 chasing a frontrunner (Deshaun Watson), who had come up on the wrong end of one of Alabama and Clemson’s national championship game showdowns.

But Jackson was a whopping +10000 in the summer, making him the only player to appear on the preseason betting board with longer odds than Burrow. The Cardinals passer was, of course, dealing with a star-studded field that in all included the players that finished second (Christian McCaffrey), third (Watson), fourth (Baker Mayfield), sixth (Leonard Fournette) and seventh (Dalvin Cook) in the previous year’s voting. Tagovailoa, meanwhile, is the only player Burrow had to contend with who suited up this season after finishing sixth or better in the 2018 vote.

While Jackson was battling giants, Louisville’s schedule that year included just two ranked opponents, paling in comparison to the gauntlet that has become the very foundation of Burrow’s resume.

The Tiger already has already beaten four top-10 teams – No. 9 Texas, No. 7 Florida, No. 9 Auburn and No. 3 Alabama — putting him in line to become the first winner to do so since Army’s Doc Blanchard in 1945. The late Pat Sullivan tried in 1971 at Auburn and couldn’t beat all four; the same with Texas’ Ricky Williams in 1998.

If he and LSU can take down No. 4 Georgia in Saturday’s SEC Championship Game, no one will be able to equal the resume Burrow has put together in his march toward claiming his stiff-armed award.

In totality, Burrow’s credentials are the veritable blueprint of a Heisman winner in this era. He’s a quarterback – the power position that has dominated the voting, winning 16 times since 2000 — on a team that’s all but a lock to make the College Football Playoff, which every player since Jackson has qualified for since its inception.

But Burrow wasn’t the best bet in the SEC West. He wasn’t even the second-best bet to have played in that division last season. Heck, he wasn’t the top choice of a QB to have worn an Ohio State uniform.

Burrow defied logic, and the odds to make championship weekend a victory lap before a landslide win.

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