Before Joe Burrow won a national championship with LSU and became one of the NFL’s highest-paid quarterbacks, he was a backup at Ohio State. And several years later, he’s still not entirely sure what went on there.
Burrow was not used for the Buckeyes in 2015. Then, as a backup to JT Barrett, he attempted just 28 passes in six games in 2016 and 11 passes in five games in 2017. Overall, Burrow managed fewer than 300 yards and scored just two touchdowns in Columbus.
Ohio State quarterbacks Joe Burrow and JT Barrett warm up before the 2017 Big Ten Championship game.
(Barbara J. Perenic / The Columbus Dispatch via USA TODAY Sports)
And with Dwayne Haskins set to become Ohio State’s starting quarterback in the 2018 season, Burrow knew it was time to take his talents elsewhere.
“I didn’t come here to sit on the bench for four years,” Burrow said at the time. “I know I’m a pretty good quarterback. I want to play somewhere.”
And that somewhere was LSU, where he won a Natty and a Heisman Trophy. During his time with the Tigers, Burrow was also named an All-American, SEC Offensive Player of the Year, AP and Sporting News College Football Player of the Year, and received a handful of other awards and accolades.
LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron and quarterback Joe Burrow celebrate with the National Championship trophy.
(Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports)
It is safe to say that the transfer worked out for him.
To be fair, Urban Meyer’s Buckeyes did pretty well, too. Ohio State won the Big Ten championship 35-5 while Burrow was on the bench.
Why wasn’t Joe Burrow good enough to play at Ohio State?
He doesn’t really know.
“At Ohio State University, I questioned myself because I was like, ‘I train so hard in the weight room, I play really well in practice,’ and I felt like no one really took notice or saw the improvement or my performance in practice,” he said on a recent episode of The pivotal point Podcasts.
He continued, “I thought to myself, ‘Do I have a distorted view of myself and how I play or what kind of quarterback I am?’ Those three and a half years were definitely tough. I had so much confidence in the work I was doing off the field and the development I was going through, but I felt like not a lot of people had confidence in me at that point.”
Fortunately for Burrow, many people now trust him. Before last season, the Cincinnati Bengals extended the Pro Bowler’s contract for five years and $275 million. With an average annual salary of $55 million, he is the highest-paid quarterback in the league, tied with Trevor Lawrence of Jacksonville and Jordan Love of Green Bay.
“All I had, as we discussed earlier, was faith in myself and that the work I was putting in would eventually pay off, and thank God it did.”
Take that, Urban Meyer.
