Film review: LSU’s Joe Burrow caps best season ever by a college quarterback

Joe Burrow capped off his legendary senior season with the Heisman Trophy and 2019 National Championship. He earned the title of having the best season ever for a quarterback.

The list of superlatives that can be used for the undefeated 2019 LSU Tigers is vast, encompassing, and somehow hard to overstate. Fresh off a 15-0 season, a national championship and producing another Heisman Trophy winner, the Tigers program has a legitimate claim they could be the best team of all time.

The most shocking part of their title run was courtesy of what may be the most impressive full season of production by a quarterback ever. Senior Joe Burrow broke out in the grandest fashion we’ve ever seen in terms of a one-year leap, both statistically, impact-wise, and from a process standpoint. This goes even beyond the raw numbers, which included an NCAA record 60 passing touchdowns, only six interceptions, 5,621 yards and only three completions short of breaking Colt McCoy’s single-season completion rate record of 76.5 percent.

The names he surpassed to rival these records are some of the more important in college football lore.

Colt Brennan’s touchdown record influenced many millennials as he tossed the ball around in June Jones’ Air Raid attack at Hawai’i. He tied Case Keenan for third all-time in yards in one season and was less than 200 yards away from Mike Leach prodigies B.J. Symons and cult hero Graham Harrell. McCoy was well-loved in his time at Texas and set his record as a short-passing game assassin.

All but McCoy also benefited from playing significantly lower levels of competition than LSU did this year. The Tigers overcame excellent teams such as Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, Clemson and Auburn.

Each of those quarterbacks had significant arm strength limitations that led to very limited NFL success, if any. Brennan had off-field issues, but he and Harrell quickly washed out because of their inability to throw to the far sideline with proper velocity. Symons never saw meaningful NFL action. McCoy was a third-round pick for the Cleveland Browns but never fully regained his full arm strength after his shoulder injury at Texas, and became a good backup.

Yet here we are, just a few months out from hearing Joe Burrow’s name called with the No. 1 pick by the Cincinnati Bengals. Burrow also has some arm strength limitations, as his passes to the far sideline from the wide hash will flutter more than you’d like to see. But his limitations are less of a worry due to one of the most dynamic passing skill sets we’ve seen come out of college this decade.

Every year it seems pundits want to compare the top signal-caller to the legendary prospect that was Andrew Luck. Luck, a genius with ideal size, arm talent, creation ability and from a pro-style system, was a fantastic prospect. He delivered upon that promise with several elite seasons in the NFL before retiring due to mounting injuries and the fatigue caused by the wear and tear.

I’ve studied and charted 79 collegiate quarterback seasons to see how well they perform in terms of throwing catchable passes in an attempt to isolate their performance from their teammates as much as I could. The results have been fascinating because it’s effectively separated most of the top prospects from the field, and has been nearly absolute in ruling out those who will amount to be mediocre backups. While some analysts are more willing to bank on the upside and raw talent, oftentimes it’s those most consistent who chart well who tend to find more success in the NFL.

Burrow, without question, had the most prolific passing season in my data in addition to shattering NCAA records. While my project is a better way to measure repeated success due to the directional and situational passing performance, it also helps give certain context to where the attempts are going and what the quarterback’s at fault for. Though it doesn’t adjust for competition within a formula, we can add that context ourselves and act accordingly.

Familiar names like Luck, Baker Mayfield, Dwayne Haskins and Teddy Bridgewater generally end up towards the top of most categories that I keep track of. Haskins and Luck had the two strongest overall profiles within the data, charting as very accurate across the field. We’ll see how Haskins’ career pans out, but he was terrific at Ohio State and had enough bright spots with Washington in his first year to be optimistic.

Right above them, in most instances, is now Burrow’s name. He finished with the following rankings in key accuracy categories: first in 0-10 yards at 87.8 percent, eighth in 11-19 yards at 72 percent, first in 20-plus yards at 62 percent, first in cumulative accuracy at 80 percent (that’s four percent higher than second place, Teddy Bridgewater), second on all throws beyond 10 yards at 67.6 percent, second under pressure at 74 percent, fourth on conversion downs at 77.9 percent, and third in touchdown/interceptable pass difference at 10.1 percent.

His directional passing breakdown is simply phenomenal as well. Each section of the field has an “in the pocket” and “outside the pocket” designation, signifying where his intended target was in relation to the middle of the field. His lone area that could’ve conceivably been stronger was on intermediate attempts to his right.

In total, Burrow was absolutely devastating on short and long attempts. That unique ability was matched by Mayfield, but the latter never had the pocket awareness, eye manipulation or footwork refinement that Burrow developed in his senior campaign. Mayfield often benefitted from an insanely open passing attack, similar elite playmakers like Burrow had and awful defensive competition.

So while the numbers are similar, Burrow never had a breakdown game as Mayfield did against Iowa State and Georgia in his final year. Those games greatly highlighted Mayfield’s passing weaknesses, whereas I waited all year to see Burrow run into the same brick wall. Maybe Ohio State was that test, but they would’ve been the only foe who may have made him look uncomfortable.

His worst game of the year came against Auburn, where he threw a catchable ball on only 5 of 11 attempts beyond 10 yards, easily his worst of the year. In typical Burrow fashion though, he helped compensate for it by picking apart Gus Malzahn’s Tigers with 24 accurate passes on 27 attempts from 0-10 yards. He always had an answer for a barrier.

His red-zone play really epitomized his dominance. Often a great indicator of future success because of tightened passing windows and need for quick decisions, Burrow continued to separate himself from his peers. He completed 77 percent of his passes for 34 touchdowns and zero interceptions. He outproduced all but 15 complete seasons in my database.

So now we know the numbers are insane and have established him as the best quarterback in recent years. The way he produced the numbers is what gives him the crown of best quarterback season I’ve studied, including Drew Brees’ underrated Purdue tenure, Peyton and Luck’s clean resumes, Cam Newton’s legendary 2010 with Auburn, and Baker’s 2017 run. Until this year, I had ranked Brees and Newton as the best collegiate quarterbacks I’d seen.

The leaps Burrow saw from his junior year went well beyond the fantastic scheme that Joe Brady implemented in 2019. Freshly off his graduate transfer from Ohio State in 2018, Burrow looked like a first-year starter, tentative in a pro-style offense and sloppy with his passing mechanics. There was nothing on film to predict his meteoric rise and overhaul of fundamentals.

He returned to campus last fall a different player due to the increase of accuracy to all levels and his fit within a spread system. His pocket presence was there as a junior, and so was his moxie to escape pressure and keep his eyes downfield. Everything else in between occasional flashes was riddled with inconsistency like the vast majority of average Joes in college.

He was a fourth-to-fifth round prospect entering his final season, destined to be a backup for a few years as he toiled but ideally never played. That may be a concern for some, but the work he put in to tie his upper and lower body together and thus increasing his accuracy tenfold, tells the story of an extremely smart, adaptive prospect who can self-evaluate and improve.

His feel for the pocket and playmaking under pressure to avoid sacks, while maintaining elite ball placement, is reminiscent of a younger Aaron Rodgers. He lacks the insane arm strength that allows Rodgers to throw off platform with a contorted arm, but Burrow compensates much like later-career Brees and Tom Brady have, by having a repeatable process to keep the feet constantly moving and ready to reset as the arm prepares to fire a quick pass. The ability to continue hit receivers in stride on deep passes and lead them to safe spots is the most powerful wild card in his array of tricks.

Countless times this year he was able to maximize the amount of yards after the catch his targets could possibly gain thanks to his ball placement. He protects the ball extremely well, with three of his interceptions being off tips, and he continues the practice by routinely leading receivers into their momentum and open space. Some quarterbacks throw catchable balls without leading their men, so they accuracy, but they lack the precision to continually frustrate a defense that’s doing everything they can correctly except stop perfect passes.

Often times his play resembled that of an expert playing with a created 99 overall quarterback on Madden or NCAA Football (RIP). His lone weakness was taking too many sacks that could’ve been avoided, but those broken plays also led to some of the great moments that spurred LSU to another blowout win. It can be called the Russell Wilson syndrome.

His mastery of space, toughness to break sacks, athleticism and intelligence to create yards on the ground when needed, is an unrivaled accomplishment despite the great performances we’ve seen as better athletes stick at quarterback in spread offenses.

How this projects to the NFL will depend on the situation the Bengals put him in, how he reacts to new schemes, stiff competition each week and the revolving talent door that comes with professional football. It’s possible he’ll never play with as dominating of a supporting cast as he did with LSU, and he’ll have to overcome more costly drops, blown blocks and mental errors than what he experienced in college since he rarely faced those setbacks in 2019.

Skillset wise, he may need to tone down the improvisation and continue to work on his arm strength, or at least be wary of trying too many cross-field attempts when there’s tighter coverage. Protecting his body will also be a priority since there’ll be bigger bodies ready to crash into him as he escapes from muddied pockets.

It’s hard to see him as a bust candidate, though. His accuracy became legendary, his playmaking is supernatural, and his maturity will help him shine even when struggle comes. At the very worst he has more improvisational talent and feel than most average NFL quarterbacks, and his accuracy will separate him immediately from young peers whose fundamentals are a work in progress.

There’s a real chance Burrow will be a clear top-10 quarterback for much of his career. I think the NFL is heading into a unique and great era with Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, Burrow, and eventually Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields as some of the most fun playmakers headlining the talent pool. Just as some of the old guard is leaving their prime and careers are ending, this new batch can continue evolving the NFL into new directions.

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