Can’t touch LSU?
If you go by sheer numbers, the Tigers have put together a season of rare offensive dominance.
BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU football season has been attached to calculators since the second game at Texas, when quarterback Joe Burrow threw for 471 yards in a 45-38 win Sept. 7 for the second most in history.
Soon Burrow would break the Southeastern Conference record for passing yards and touchdowns in a season, as he has 5,208 and 55 respectively, shattering the marks of 4,275 and 44. The yardage record had stood since 1998. Burrow has 71 touchdown passes in his twoyear LSU career, which broke the school record of 69 held since 1989 by Tommy Hodson, who played four seasons.
In No. 1 LSU’s 63-28 win over No. 4 Oklahoma in a national semifinal game in Atlanta, Burrow threw for seven touchdowns and rushed for one, making him the first player in Football Bowl Subdivision history to be responsible for eight touchdowns in a bowl game.
Burrow is the first quarterback in Southeastern Conference history to throw for 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns in a season. No SEC quarterback had thrown for 4,000 yards and 40 touchdowns.
On Dec. 14, he won the first Heisman Trophy for LSU since tailback Billy Cannon in 1959.
The senior from The Plains, Ohio, who transferred from Ohio State in June 2018, is on pace to break the NCAA completion percentage record set by Texas’ Colt McCoy in 2008 at .767. Burrow is at .776 (371 of 478 passing) with one game to play. That will be the national championship game between LSU (14-0) and No. 3 Clemson (14-0) on Jan. 13 in the Superdome in New Orleans.
“It’s unbelievable what their quarterback has done,” said Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, who does have the No. 1 scoring defense in the nation with 11.5 points per game allowed and the No. 1 pass efficiency defense. “Statistically what he did is unbelievable. They really just shred everybody, and it starts with him.”
But it’s not just Burrow. Lost in the records and statistics of LSU’s magical, stat monster of a 2019 season is the fact that the Tigers are more balanced than one might think. The Tigers have attempted 518 passes, but they have run just 37 fewer times with 481 attempts.
For this reason, LSU has the rare distinction in NCAA history of having a 5,000-yard passer in Burrow, two 1,000-yard wide receivers in Biletnikoff Award winner Ja’Marr Chase (1,559 on 75 catches) and Justin Jefferson (1,434 on 102 catches), and a 1,000-yard rusher in tailback Clyde Edwards-Helaire (1,304 on 199 carries).
They are not the first to achieve such numbers, as previously reported widely, but the Tigers are clearly in rare air.
LSU is the first school since Hawaii in 2010 to have such a voluminous four-pronged attack. Hawaii quarterback Byrant Montz threw for 5,040 yards, while wide receivers Greg Salas and Kealoha Pilares caught passes for 1,889 and 1,306 yards, and tailback Alex Green rushed for 1,199.
“He’s got great receivers, offensive line,” Swinney said. “He’s had a great run-game support. Just a complete football team in every sense of the word.”
Many within the LSU locker and meeting rooms anticipated a great passing offense, but not like this.
“No,” LSU coach Ed Orgeron said. “I couldn’t imagine. I never thought we’d have the records. I thought we could win every game with Joe and the players and the schedule we had with some good teams at home. I didn’t know we would.
“But I had no idea we’d break all the records that we’re doing right here.”
LSU leads the nation in total offense with 7,899 yards and 564.2 yards per game. The SEC record for total offense was 7,830 set by Alabama last year in 15 games. Texas A&M had the yards per game record since
2012 with 558.5.
“It’s not about the records. It’s about the wins,” Orgeron said. “But it’s been phenomenal – the most prolific offense in SEC history. Nobody ever dreamed that at the beginning of the year.”
Burrow’s accuracy is unquestioned, and it’s not like he throws short very often. But he credits wide receivers Chase and Jefferson in addition to Terrace Marshall Jr. (43 catches, 625 yards), Edwards-Helaire (50 for 399) and tight end Thaddeus Moss (42 for 534).
“We have five NFL guys in route every single snap,” Burrow said, excluding running plays to Edwards-Helaire. “So you have to pick your poison. I just try to get the ball in their hands on time and accurately and then let them do the rest.”
The passing attack is the brainchild of first-year, 30-yearold pass game coordinator Joe Brady, whom Orgeron hired from a lower offensive assistant job with the NFL’s Saints.
“The last thing I told Joe was he was making a mistake,”
Saints coach Sean Payton said. “So much for what I know. But look, I’m excited certainly for Ed and their staff and that team. It’s been really impressive.” And it looks very familiar. “I know when I watch them on TV and that’s what I’ve seen – they just have such good balance,” said Payton, who has had some of the NFL’s best offenses since 2006. “They’re running the ball well.
“There’s a lot of talented players on the field. The quarterback has been outstanding. It is impressive.
“We are their biggest fans. We’re excited for them. It’s a good time to be a football fan in Louisiana.”
As when Saints quarterback Drew Brees usually drops back, Burrow does not always have an intended receiver. This spreads the wealth.
“Everybody eats. We’ve been saying that since the spring,” Jefferson said.
“It’s making them defend every single person,” Burrow said. “Anybody can get the ball on any play. We’re not designing plays to go to this one guy.
“We have progression reads that everyone can get the ball on until I decide. So you have to be on your toes as a defense and really understand who has each individual player. Otherwise, we’ll beat you, or I’ll find a guy. And that’s what makes it so difficult to defend.”
LSU safety Grant Delpit noticed that in the spring as the defense struggled to focus on a receiver or two as in the past.
“Just seeing Joe slinging the ball around, getting the ball into playmakers’ hands was great to see. We knew we had a great team then,” he said.
“We do a really good job of finding matchups that are favorable to us,” Burrow said. “You’ve got to find your guy.”
But there are too many as the numbers suggest.
“We make it difficult to do that,” Burrow said.