Texas Football: Admiring the amazing Joe Burrow from a Longhorns view

A quarterback that beat this Texas football team back in Week 2, Joe Burrow, is putting on quite the show against OU in the Peach Bowl.

Texas football got their crack at knocking off the 2019 Heisman Trophy winner, LSU Tigers senior star quarterback Joe Burrow, back in Week 2 of the regular season. And Texas came about closer than anyone to knocking off the nation’s No.1 team heading into the College Football Playoff. A missed onside kick catch on the sideline from senior Texas wide receiver Collin Johnson cost the team in a 45-38 loss at home in Austin.

Since that loss to LSU, the Texas Longhorns football program found itself trending in the wrong direction. The Longhorns finished up the regular season with a record of 7-5 (5-4 Big 12). Texas will take on the No. 11 ranked PAC-12 runner-up Utah Utes in the Alamo Bowl after racking up just sevens wins so far this year.

However, the real story of the postseason so far involves a game that is only at halftime. LSU took on the Longhorns hated rival Oklahoma Sooners in the Peach Bowl in the College Football Playoff Semifinals on Dec. 28. This was the first of two College Football Playoff Semifinals games to take place on Saturday evening/night.

LSU got off to a hot start against a lacking Oklahoma defense, and never looked back in the first half. Burrow and the Tigers put up more than 400 passing yards and seven touchdowns through the air in the first half alone. LSU went into the locker room at halftime with nearly 500 total yards of offense and 49 points. Oklahoma had just 14 points at the half.

The amazing show that Burrow is putting on in the Peach Bowl brings me back to a bigger point that he is having an absolutely historic season that is worth a ton of admiration, even for Texas football fans. Burrow is a quarterback that was originally recruited by head Texas football coach Tom Herman, which is a pretty amazing fact at this point in time.

Burrow absolutely obliterated the previous College Football Playoff record of passing touchdowns in a half. He also went 21-of-27 passing in the first half, so his usual completion rate hanging just shy of 80 percent stuck in the Peach Bowl.

With that first half that Burrow had against Oklahoma, his number of total touchdowns is now up to 60. He’s also well over 5,000 passing yards on the season. And his completion percentage should stay well above 75 after this game.

This one game in the Playoff against Oklahoma isn’t the only historic mark that Burrow is registering this year. He could wind up breaking former Texas star quarterback Colt McCoy’s NCAA record for completion percentage in a season, of 76.7. And he should get past former Texas Tech quarterback B.J. Symons (at least with the pace he’s on now) for single season passing yards, 5,833.

However, he would have to go on a torrid pace in the second half and in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game to get past Symons’ single season passing yards record.

Whether it be the Clemson Tigers or the Ohio State Buckeyes that winds up taking on Burrow and the Tigers in the national title game, this looks to be an almost insurmountable task to defend the LSU passing attack. LSU will be averaging around 400 passing yards per game and at least four touchdowns through the air after this Peach Bowl against Oklahoma.

It seems like so long ago that the Longhorns were trying to knock off LSU, as a top 10 ranked team themselves, under the lights at home at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. But you have to truly admire what Burrow and the Tigers accomplished since that time.

LSU is proving that they deserve to be ranked as the nation’s top team and could be the favorite to win the national title when it’s all said and done.