Advertisement
football Edit

In Burrow, we trust: LSU rallies behind QB's ability to audible

Photo: USA Today Sports
Photo: USA Today Sports (Sam Spiegelman)

ARLINGTON (Texas) — Even Joe had his doubts.

When you’re the quarterback at LSU, there’s a unique pressure that only few have tasted and even fewer have embraced. It may not have fully struck Joe Burrow, who was named the starter for the Tigers only six days before the team’s season opener against No. 8 Miami at AT&T Stadium, who had to regain his own self-confidence before taking a snap in primetime.

The moment was colossal — and that’s putting it lightly. Scratch the stress that goes hand-in-hand with orchestrating LSU’s stereotyped offense. Burrow hadn’t started in four years. The last time was as a high school senior in Ohio Stadium, coming up 4 points shy in the Division III stat championship game. Since then, Burrow has been redshirted and buried on a depth chart, which eventually compelled the former Buckeye to seek an opportunity with a quarterback-needy program in the southeast.

Burrow arrived at LSU in June and, in typical fashion, spoke more in his actions than with his words.

During the team’s initial conditioning test in June, Burrow outraced the former 4- and 5-star athletes to claim first place time and time again. On Saturdays, he’d call his wide receivers to work on route trees and timing in an effort to build chemistry in a hurry.

That moment that Burrow chased finally arrived. Of all places, in Dallas. Of all teams, LSU. It was a far cry from the pre-designed outlook the Ohio native once had. It required a rather atypical gut check to again regain focus.

“Going out there, I kind of stopped on the first play for a second … I’m quarterback for LSU, playing Miami, in Dallas on national TV, then I called the cadence,” Burrow said after the Tigers’ 33-17 triumph over No. 8 Miami. “For about three seconds, I was kind of taking a step back.”

It wouldn’t be the last either.

The longtime backup had earned a starting job, which comes with power, especially for an LSU team ushering in a new offense and new play-caller in Steve Ensminger, Ed Orgeron’s second coordinator in as many years as head coach.

Burrow seized the moment during the Tigers’ third offensive series. After a field goal and a three-and-out to start the game, Burrow and Co. were navigating down the field. Staring at another opportunity to jump on top of Miami, Burrow notice a safety creeping down into the box.

“He’s going to blitz,” Burrow guessed. With the play clock winding down and timeouts already scarce in the opening quarter, LSU’s quarterback called an audible. Burrow checked the play to the left side of the field and reassigned the offensive line’s responsibilities. Left guard Garrett Brumfield cleared a wide-open lane for Nick Brossette, his former teammate at University Lab, to barrel through for a 50-yard touchdown which gave LSU a lead it would refuse to relinquish the rest of the contest.

Burrow changed the play at the line of scrimmage between four or five times that game, wide receiver Jonathan Giles estimated, but none shifted momentum in the Tigers’ favor more than on the first touchdown of the season.

“It happens a lot," Giles laughed. “Peyton Manning says. ‘Omaha!’ It’s the same way. If he doesn’t like the call, he’s going to check it. He’s very smart and we have his back. When it comes to that, we’re not scared to let him check out of a pass and into a run or a run to a pass.”

Unlike a lot of the starting jobs in the season opener, Burrow’s ability to audible at the line of scrimmage is far from a nuance for these Tigers.

Burrow, who led offseason workouts with his wide receiving corps, felt comfortable enough to check plays Day 1 of fall camp. Of course, that in the midst of a four-man quarterback competition with Myles Brennan, his backup, and Justin McMillan and Lowell Narcisse, who have since transferred to Tulane and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, respectively.

It became more of a routine than a nuance for this offense. And just as he did with sprints and practice, Burrow won the confidence of his teammates with well-timed audibles leading up to this opening tilt.

“The first time he got here, we was checking,” said Giles. “We trust him. We roll with it.”

Burrow’s first audible on Sunday proved to be the catalyst in LSU’s victory. Brossette’s run sparked a 30-0 scoring onslaught by the Tigers, which included several other checks complements of No. 9.

It’s why he won the quarterback competition and it’s why members of this staff and team remain confident that LSU’s offense is primed for further development. It’s a new scheme with a new coordinator, with little room for error.

But in Burrow, LSU trusts.

“He didn’t panic and he got us going,” Orgeron said of his quarterback. “That's what we have seen from Joe the whole time. That's what we saw when we drew him. He's very smart. He's cool under pressure, can make adjustments. He was ready to go. He was fired up today. And that was a big fourth-down play for us, and that was a big audible on his part.”

“Having a quarterback that can make those decisions and make the changes at the line of scrimmage like Joe Burrow is important,” he added.

Advertisement