LSU’s Joe Burrow caps best college season ever with record-breaking performance in National Championship
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Joe Burrow put a bow on the greatest college football season we’ve ever seen as he led the LSU Tigers past Clemson to win the National Championship.
Call him the maestro because LSU quarterback Joe Burrow orchestrated the best single-season in college football history.
There was only one thing left for Burrow to do in the 2019-20 college football season. The LSU Tigers quarterback had already led his team to an undefeated regular season, already won the Heisman Trophy and already re-written the SEC and College Football Playoff record books. All that was left was capturing a title with a win over Clemson in the National Championship Game.
And as he has all season, no matter how bright the lights, Burrow not only got the job done but he did it with yet another exceptional performance.
After tying the game early in the first quarter with a 52-yard touchdown pass to Ja’Marr Chase, LSU fell down 17-7 as Trevor Lawrence and Clemson came out juiced up. Burrow maintained control of the moment though and put LSU on his back. That started with a crafty three-yard touchdown run:
Joe Burrow finds the end zone to put LSU within 3 in the #NationalChampionship on ESPN. pic.twitter.com/0uqANn5Mdy
— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) January 14, 2020
On the next LSU drive, Burrow flawlessly moved his Tigers down the field and gave them the lead with a dime, once again finding Chase for six:
https://twitter.com/espn/status/1216915478209277954
As if taking the lead in the National Championship Game wasn’t enough for the prolific passer, Burrow decided to make history early in the second half.
Burrow threw his third touchdown of the night just before halftime but Clemson answered quickly out of the locker room. After a three-and-out from LSU then forcing the opposition to punt, Burrow drove 68 yards before finding Thaddeus Moss from four yards out on a beautiful improvised play. And with that throw, his 59th of the season, he set the FBS record for most touchdown passes in a single season:
https://twitter.com/FanSided/status/1216937233388732418
With the help of the defense, which shut Lawrence down in the second half after the first-drive score, Burrow scored once more and then helped ice the game to capture the National Championship.
Burrow finished the game with an unbelievable performance, going 31-of-49 for 463 yards and five touchdowns while also rushing for 58 yards and another trip to the end zone. As he did from Week 1 of the season and every week since Burrow put the Tigers on his back and made magic happen.
College football has truly never seen as dominant of a single-season effort as what Burrow put forth this year, a sentiment which another all-timer in former USC quarterback Matt Leinart agrees with.
The greatest season by a CFB QB we have ever seen belongs to @Joe_Burrow10!
— Matt Leinart (@MattLeinartQB) January 14, 2020
As mentioned, he etched his names all over the SEC record books en route to the Heisman but, with his dominant National Championship Game performance, he also re-wrote history on a national scale.
According to ESPN Stats & Information, here are the record Burrow captured with his monstrous outing to cap off his remarkable campaign:
- Most Pass TD in a season in FBS history
- Most TD responsible for in a season in FBS history
- Most TD responsible for in a BCS/CFP title game
- Most pass yards in a BCS/CFP title game
The performance from the Superdome was an encapsulation of what makes Burrow’s season the greatest in college football history. His numbers were historic with 60 touchdown passes, 5,671 yards and only six interceptions while completing over 77 percent of his passes and rushing for five scores. He kept his team perfect, all the way to bringing another title to Baton Rouge.
But more important than all that, the quarterback shined the most when the pressure was at its highest. If there’s a better benchmark for greatness than that, I’m not sure what it is. And it’s only fitting that Burrow ended such a year hoisting the title after doing just that one final time to end
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