Championship ending caps LSU Tigers’ 2019 tale
Head coach Ed Orgeron and LSU celebrate after it overwhelmed Clemson to claim the school’s first national football title since the 2007 crown.
NEW ORLEANS – Freeze the frame half a second before the throw that lifted Joe Burrow from legend to LSU immortal Jan. 13, and you’ll notice two things.
First, no one in the picture was open. Second, as Burrow brings his arm back, Clemson linebacker James Skalski is a yard and a half away, ready to wallop him with a shot to the ribs that would have made many quarterbacks question whether it was worth the price.
But, of course, Burrow delivered anyway. In that moment, he delivered a touchdown to Thaddeus Moss that struck the first blow to Clemson’s championship aura. He delivered a performance for the ages against the best defensive plan anyone’s thrown at him. He delivered a perfect Heisman Trophy season capped off by a national title won right on the edge of Bourbon Street. And in delivering his program to the promised land for the first time since 2007, he wrote his own legacy as the most popular player to ever wear an LSU uniform.
Of all the players who have ever worn the purple and gold, from long-ago legends like Billy Cannon to Odell Beckham and a host of modern-day stars, none can measure up to what Joey Burrow did, cementing himself as a forever name in this endlessly passionate football state with a 42-25 win over Clemson. And given what Burrow had done all season, it couldn’t have ended any other way.
“We are so grateful for Joe Burrow,” LSU coach Ed Orgeron said.
Just like he was against Texas, against Florida, against Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma, Burrow was better than anything the blue bloods could throw at him. It didn’t matter he was once the third-stringer at Ohio State who never got a chance or the transfer at LSU who last season looked destined to be a middling starter.
For 15 games, no single player has dominated a season the way Burrow did this year, marrying a relentlessly aggressive offensive system with a player who had the physical skill, the intelligence and the moxie to figure out everything that was thrown at him.
And because Burrow was so accurate and so tough in every environment and under every circumstance, LSU attacked every possession like the end zone was its life force, as if failing to reach it as fast as possible would reveal its mortality.
In the end, nobody could really wound LSU’s offense enough to see whether it would bleed. Like the rest of them, Clemson tried.
For about a quarter, it looked like the best defensive coordinator in football might have solved him. Clemson’s Brent Venables was throwing odd fronts at Burrow, bringing pressure from different angles, lining up havoc-causer Isaiah Simmons all over the field and presenting a picture of chaos and confusion that was unlike anything Burrow had seen before.
But in the end, down 17-7 to Clemson and having punted on four of its first five possessions was as close as anyone would come this season to making LSU look ordinary. Because at that very moment, when LSU needed a score the most, everything special about this team began to show up.
“We got down,” Burrow said. “We never flinched. We knew what we had. Once we figured out what they were trying to do, our coaches put together a great game plan.”
Burrow started finding the matchup that most favored his team, going after Clemson cornerback A.J. Terrell time and again because he simply could not cover Ja’Marr Chase. Unlike Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa in last year’s title game, Burrow made Venables pay.
LSU scored 21 points on the final 22 plays of the half, the last of which was the bullet of a 6-yard touchdown he released just a hair before Skalski clobbered him to take a 28-17 lead into halftime. And by the end, what looked like Burrow’s toughest test was a master class: 31-for-49, 463 yards, five touchdowns. He also set the single-season record with 60 TD passes.
The program that struggled for more than a decade to find a quarterback to match the talent it had accumulated everywhere else now owns the greatest single season any college quarterback has ever played. Better than Tim Tebow. Better than Cam Newton. Better than Deshaun Watson.
The last time LSU played in a national championship game – in this building in 2011 against Alabama – it could barely crawl across midfield. This time, the Tigers left as emphatic champions, led by the Ohio kid who yearned for a shot to play quarterback at a big-time program.
Nobody ever saw something like this coming from Burrow. But no matter how long they play football in this state and drink bourbon outside Tiger Stadium on Saturdays in the fall, nobody will ever forget it.