LSU Football: Wild stat shows Joe Burrow’s dominance against ranked teams
By Zach Ragan
LSU football’s Joe Burrow had a season for the ages in 2019.
We’ll probably never again see a season like LSU football quarterback Joe Burrow had in 2019.
Burrow’s final stat line looks like it’s straight out of a video game.
5,671 passing yards, 60 touchdowns and only six interceptions. And he did that while completing a mind-blowing 76.3 percent of his passes.
Insane.
But those stats don’t fully illustrate just how good Burrow was in 2019. He was actually better than those numbers indicate.
And it’s because of what Burrow accomplished against ranked teams.
The Tigers played 7 of their 15 games in 2019 against ranked opponents.
In those seven games, Burrow passed for 2,783 yards, 27 touchdowns and only two interceptions.
That means he averaged 397 yards per game against ranked teams.
Against unranked teams, Burrow averaged 361 yards per game.
Now, obviously Burrow didn’t always play the whole game in blowout wins against unranked teams (though there were some blowout wins against ranked teams as well, just ask Oklahoma), which is why his yards per game is down a bit in those games.
What this stat shows, however, is that most of Burrow’s damage came against some of the best teams in the nation. He wasn’t simply stuffing the stat sheet against lower-tiered teams.
There was only one game against a ranked opponent (LSU’s win against Florida) in which Burrow tossed for less than 300 yards.
He passed for nearly 500 yards (493 to be exact) in the Tigers’ College Football Playoff semi-final win against the Sooners.
On top of that, Burrow only threw two interceptions in his seven games against ranked opponents.
TWO!
It’s still completely mind-boggling to me that Burrow was as good as he was last season. Anyone calling that season a fluke, or simply the result of a well-schemed offense, is in denial.
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Burrow’s 2019 season is the greatest season for a college quarterback ever.
And I’d be shocked if anyone ever comes close to matching it.