Joe Burrow: A Controversial Rise to Fame

Joe Burrow came from the small, poverty-stricken town of The Plains, Ohio. In The Plains, Ohio, the Burrow name is associated with athletic greatness: Joe’s uncle was a football player at Ole Miss, Joe’s grandmother once put up 82 points in a Mississippi High School basketball game, Joe’s father and his older brother played defense in college for the University of Nebraska, and while growing up, There was hope that Joe would follow in his family footsteps, and it happened because Joe was a star football player and all-state for basketball. 

In high school, Joe Burrow passed for 11,416 passing yards and 157 touchdowns and rushed for 2,067 yards and 27 touchdowns. He did all of that while leading his team to a 14-1 record, and that only loss occurred in the state championship. 

Burrow was a four-star recruit coming out of high school and was rated the number eight dual-threat quarterback in the country. Nebraska, the college that everyone thought he’d go to didn’t want Burrow to be their next quarterback. Luckily for Burrow, The Ohio State historically likes to overload their quarterback depth chart, and they made Burrow an offer to join the Buckeyes as a part of the 2015 recruiting class. He ended up accepting the offer from Ohio State and redshirted his freshman year. Over the next two seasons, he saw very limited action on the field. In 2017, Burrow would break his hand, but once he was fully healed, he returned in the spring for practice. Leading up to the 2018 season, Coach Urban Meyer was overheard in practice giving Burrow a very hard time. Meyer said he needed more velocity, told him that he was a division three quarterback, and even made comments that he threw like a girl. In the 2018 season, Burrow lost the fight for the starting quarterback job at The Ohio State to Dwayne Haskins. After throwing his final pass for The Ohio State in a 2018 spring game, Burrow decided to transfer. That’s when LSU came into the picture and swooped in to save Burrow’s football career. 

The quarterback situation at LSU was in Joe Burrow’s favor. LSU lost two quarterbacks to the transfer portal, and the current backup quarterback, Miles Brennan was not QB1 material. (Add facts on why not qb1) After a long fight, Burrow earned the coveted starting role, and he was ready to show the college football world that he was there to win. After Burrow earned the starting role, LSU was picked to finish fifth in their division, but Burrow gave the team a spark. He became the first quarterback in LSU history to gain 3,000 yards in a season since Jamarcus Russell. By the end of December, the Tigers were transformed into a top-ten team and earned a spot in the New Year’s six bowl games. Against six top twenty defenses, and with an offensive line that was struggling, Burrow went 4-2, including a comeback against number seven-ranked Auburn.

Burrow had many impressive games throughout his college tenure, but one that turned heads and solidified his name in college football history was in the Fiesta Bowl against UCF. After taking a huge hit by Brandon Moore (one of UCF’s defensive backs) with his team down by 11 points he rose up from the ashes with vengeance. He finished the game by throwing for nearly 400 yards and four touchdowns, as his number 11-ranked Tigers beat UCF. In 2019, Joe Burrow didn’t lose once in his LSU uniform. He would then proceed to defeat the number-one-ranked team in the country, Alabama, for nearly 400 yards and three touchdowns in what some would consider the game of the year. The highlight of his college career was the national championship victory against Clemson, where he battled the future NFL quarterback, Trevor Lawerance. Burrow threw six touchdowns on 463 passing yards. Joe Burrow finished his college career with his name etched on all of the college football awards. He passed for 5,671 yards and 60 touchdowns, and he won the national championship that season. His historic season earned him the Heisman Trophy. 

Despite all the adversity that Burrow faced during his college career, he found a way to persevere and make a name for himself in the sport of football. Burrow will go down as one of the LSU greats, and is now thriving as the starting quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals. Joe Burrow came off of his first Super Bowl birth last season but unfortunately lost. Now, he’s back in the 2023 playoffs, trying to bring home to Cincinnati their first Super Bowl victory. 

By Avner Belsky