LSU Football: How Ed Orgeron convinced Joe Burrow to come to Baton Rouge

LSU football head coach Ed Orgeron had to work hard to convince Joe Burrow to join the Tigers in 2018.

When Joe Burrow decided to transfer from Ohio State, no one had any clue the kind of career he’d end up having as LSU football’s quarterback.

In fact, Burrow was relatively unknown in the college football world in 2018.

Sure, Burrow was a former four-star recruit that was rated by 247Sports as the No. 7 dual-threat rated quarterback in the 2015 class, but he was an afterthought after languishing on the Buckeyes’ bench for three years.

When Burrow decided to transfer, after receiving his degree from Ohio State, he narrowed his choices to two schools — Cincinnati and LSU.

Burrow was familiar with Cincinnati because of head coach Luke Fickell (who was on Ohio State’s staff during Burrow’s first two seasons in Columbus). He was familiar with LSU because Tigers safeties coach Bill Busch was an assistant at Ohio State in 2015.

At Cincinnati, Burrow was pretty much guaranteed the starting quarterback job. That was a big selling point. Burrow didn’t want to leave Ohio State just to go sit on the bench at another program.

In Baton Rouge, however, the starting quarterback job wasn’t necessarily going to be promised to Burrow, which meant the Tigers had to work hard to convince the young quarterback to come to LSU.

Not only did Burrow want some clarity on the starting job at LSU (he’d be competing with Myles Brennan, Justin McMillan, and Lowell Narcisse), but he also wanted to know that Coach O planned on passing the ball more than the Tigers had in 2017.

Near the end of an intense recruiting visit, which is wonderfully chronicled by The Advocate in an excerpt from Jeffrey Marx’s “Walking with Tigers: A Collection of LSU Sports Stories”, Coach O took Burrow aside and got extremely candid.

Orgeron knew that he had to win in 2018 after going 9-4 (with a loss to Troy at home) in 2017. He was betting on Burrow and he wanted the future Heisman Trophy winner to know that.

According to Marx, Coach O, in a roundabout way, told Burrow that he was better than the quarterbacks on LSU’s roster. Orgeron didn’t promise Burrow the starting job that day. Instead, Orgeron told Burrow that he knew how the quarterback battle would play out. Coach O knew Burrow would win it.

Orgeron essentially told Burrow that day that he was the missing piece for LSU.

Burrow, who according to Marx wasn’t nearly as confident as he is now, found a renewed sense of belief in himself after the conversation with Orgeron.

“It felt like he was going all-in on me. And I hadn’t felt something like that from a coach in a long time”, said Burrow to Marx.

Oddly enough, after the conversation, Coach O was certain that Burrow wasn’t coming to LSU.

A week after the visit to Baton Rogue, after a lot of thought and reflection, Burrow called Orgeron to tell him he was going to play for the Tigers.

Burrow believed he could be a champion at LSU. He believed in the vision that Coach O had for him — which stemmed from that candid conversation.

That turned out to be a smart move. Now Burrow has a championship ring and he’s about to be the top selection in the 2020 NFL Draft.

None of that probably happens if Burrow goes to Cincinnati.

One recruiting visit, however, changed everything for Burrow, Coach O and LSU.