Nervous? Not Joe

[PDub80]

(08-28-2020, 11:01 PM)LSU Tiger Wrote: Steelers/LSU fan here, coming in peace because I love Joe Burrow.

I love him so much I want him to light it up with y'all.

Anyone saying he was "bad" in 2018 or was a one year wonder did not watch Joe Burrow play in 2018 (which, by the way, was his first year as a starter, in what happens to be the toughest conference in college football).

The offense in his first year was stale, outdated, power toss type offense. Nevertheless, he showed flashes in the first part of the season (Ole Miss game for example).

But something clicked for him after the Alabama game. After that game (so, the final four of the season) his stats:

81/121, 1167 yards, 10 PTDs, 3 RTD, 1 INT. What does that normalize over a 15 game season?

304/454, 67%, 4,376 yards (9.64 ypa), 59 total TDs, 4 INTs.

What were his actual stats in 2019?

402/527, 76.3%, 5671 yards (10.8 y/a), 65 total TDs, 6 ints

While obviously he improved in 2019 (in addition to the modernization of our offense), it's silly to pretend he just came out of nowhere. He was playing at this level for the last 4 games of his first year as a starter.

Y'all can look up the numbers yourself, so I'm not telling you anything new, but the naysayers I've seen around here relying on "one hit wonder" did not watch him in 2018. I knew he'd be great in 2019 (though not as great as he ended up) based on his Fiesta Bowl performance alone. I texted my college buddies after his Texas game that he should be a Heisman contender.

Complaints about his arm strength are overblown. He is hyper accurate, and fit it into insane windows with regularity in college. He's not Mahomes arm strength, but he's not Chad Pennington either.

He's ultra competitive. He's confident. He's a leader. He's everything you want in a QB.

Could he bust? Sure. But there's nothing about him that would lead me to believe he will.

Really rooting for him to dominate with y'all.

I really appreciate you coming in here to post that.