Burrow, LSU’s offense a sight to behold

BATON ROUGE — It doesn’t seem possible, but LSU was better than billed.

That’s why the Tigers’ destiny appears to be the College Football Playoff. If quarterback Joe Burrow doesn’t get hurt, perhaps a national championship is in the offing.

There may be only one team that can beat the Tigers, and that’s LSU, which needs to keep playing like it has something to prove.

The key to this big, bad machine is the fifth-year senior Burrow, who should add a Heisman Trophy to his awards shelf next month.

The University of Arkansas was playing the best it had since the first half against Kentucky early in the game.

On both sides of the ball the Razorbacks showed heart, and it was against a squad that had beaten four teams who were ranked in the Top 10.

Midway through the second quarter, the Razorbacks trailed 7-6.

The Tigers have not trailed at halftime this season, and only against Florida and Auburn were they tied.

It quickly became obvious the Razorbacks were men against bigger-and-faster men.

Beating the 43 1/2-point spread with some lucky bounces and a couple of fourth-quarter touchdowns helped, but the final score of 56-20 was not indicative of how much the Tigers were in control, especially in the second half when the Razorbacks’ defense was gassed.

On the Hogs’ side, you had a true freshman starting his first game at quarterback in a place that is nicknamed Death Valley for a good reason.

This is where opponents come to die.

KJ Jefferson showed no fear. He fought for yards, ducked sacks and made some good throws against a smothering defense.

There is no doubt Arkansas

Chancellor Joe Steinmetz’s hand-picked interim athletic director Julie Cromer Peoples made the biggest football-hiring mistake in the history of the Razorbacks.

It was a decision that has affected hardworking people in Fayetteville who have seen hotel rooms go unused, restaurants that reveled on home weekends live on regulars, and a loss of millions of dollars to the local economy.

Cromer Peoples is now the athletic director at Ohio University, and Steinmetz just received a new threeyear contract at Arkansas.

And the Razorbacks are looking for their third head coach in two years.

It wasn’t initially a popular decision among the LSU faithful when Ed Orgeron was hired as the permanent coach despite going 6-2 as an interim.

As the head coach at Ole Miss, Orgeron made a ton of mistakes and was fired. He landed first at USC as an assistant coach, then LSU before becoming the interim head coach when Les Miles was fired.

Orgeron had learned from his mistakes, and under his leadership the Tigers are 36-9 overall and 22-7 in SEC play.

People aren’t talking about how many SEC games he’s lost. They are talking about how he has brought a team together in just his third full-time season.

It started with the transfer portal, where he found Burrow. Then he hired a 30-year-old passing coordinator named Joe Brady who has made the Tigers a steamroller on steroids.

In the last seven minutes of the first half, the Tigers scored on drives of 75, 62 and 90 yards. That’s 227 yards in 20 plays.

The man who orchestrated the offensive assault was Burrow. At the half, he was 20-of-25 passing for 246 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Most quarterbacks would love those stats for a game. He finished his night in the third quarter at 22-of-28 passing for 327 yards and another touchdown.

LSU is great, but Arkansas didn’t quit for the first time in too long.